Blood's Island
by Lilacheart
Summary: Thirty five strangers, most from different dimensions, wake up on an island and are told they are a part of a game where they have to defeat each other to keep their freedom. Now, the contestants must decide what to do, who to trust, and who to fight.
1. Chapter 1

_Final Day_

If I told any sane person that I just won a battle against thirty five people on an unchartered island in the middle of nowhere, they would think I was nuts. I couldn't believe it myself. Lives had been taken. I had left many friends. Yet it couldn't be a nightmare, no matter how much I wished it was. I sat on the boat, as it floated away from the shore. I wondered how everyone who had survived was. We had been warned where we were sent if we lost. It's the only reason we had fought so hard. And even the thought that some of those people's fate had been sealed, and it was my fault...I sighed. There was nothing I could do anymore. It was all up to them to make the most of their lives. I had to decide what to do with mine.


	2. Chapter 2

_Day One_

POV: Syaoran

"Hello...!?" I called out. My head throbbed. My back hurt. What was I doing here? Where was I? I looked around uselessly. It didn't matter how much I tried. I couldn't see anything that would help me out.

"Kurogane...? Sakura...? Fai...?" I asked. I heard many people breathing slowly around me. I shuddered. My neck was freezing. I put my hand up to it and my eyes narrowed. It was fitted with a steel collar. I clenched my fists. Why did I have to be blind? I put my hand onto the floor to feel the texture of the ground. Sand. I struggled to my feet and took a few steps forward. My foot landed in a small puddle. I took another step forward. More water. I stepped on a rock with my next step. I picked it up and, frustrated, threw it as hard as I could. I heard a giant splashing sound from the distance.

"So it's definately not a puddle I'm standing in..." I confirmed aloud. I heard someone stir from behind me. I swung around.

"Where...where am I?" It was a girls voice, but it wasn't Sakura's.

"Who are you?" I asked cautiously.

"Adriane," The girl said. I heard her take a step forward, then she froze.

"Is something wrong...?" I asked.

"Dragons...!" She breathed.

"Dragons?" I asked, not getting it.

"You'd have to be blind to not see them!" She cried, shock in her voice.

"Yah, thanks for rubbing it in," I growled.

"Sorry," She said, then stepped forward. "Why does my neck have a collar on it?" She asked. I shrugged. I heard her pull her hair back and reach for the back of the collar. "There's something stopping me from taking it off..." She muttered. I sighed.

"Could you tell me where I'm standing?" I asked, a little embarrassed about the stupidity of my question.

"Well...there's a bunch of other people...all unconcious...you're standing in the ocean...I think we're on a beach," She confirmed. I nodded and stepped out of the ocean.

"Stop!" Adriane yelled. I froze. "You nearly stepped on someone."

My face flushed red. "Oops," I muttered. She walked over to me and put her hand on my shoulder. She guided me around whoever I had nearly stepped on and over to something else. "What am I supposed to be looking at?" I asked.

"A dragon," The girl said, obviously staring at it. I heard her put her hand on its neck. The dragon snapped around. I jumped back. Adriane didn't seem fazed. "Hello," she said.

A small growl noise filled the air. "Where's Eragon!?" A voice yelled in my head. I flinched.

"Who?" I asked.

"ERAGON!!!!!!!!" I grabbed my ears and wimpered.

"No need to yell..." I whispered.

"We don't know of anyone named Eragon," Adriane said. The dragon flapped its wings.

"And who might you be?" She asked.

"Adriane. You?" The dragon hesitated.

"Saphira..." It growled.

The sudden racket seemed to be waking up everyone. People scrambled to their feet. I heard someone dragging Adriane away, and Saphira started talking to someone else. Maybe another dragon? Someone grabbed me by the arm. I flinched and pulled backwards.

"I keep forgetting not to sneak up on you...-"

"Sakura!" I cried in relief. The tension that surrounded her lightened, as it usually did when she smiled, and I felt her wrap her arms around me.

"Are you OK? You didn't go exploring by yourself, did you?" Sakura asked as she let go of me. I shook my head. It was pretty much the truth.

"Where are Kurogane and Fai?" I asked. "And what are these collars? How did we get here?"

"Who knows?" A gruff voice grumbled from behind me. I turned around.

"Kuro-puu's just angry that someone managed to knock us out long enough to bring us here," I heard Fai say. I laughed. It was probably true.

"It's Kurogane," Kurogane growled for the fifteen thousandth time.

Something loud rung out from behind us. I winced and turned around. "What was that?" I asked. Sakura didn't respond, but I felt her shrug.

"That hurt my ears..." I heard someone mutter irritably.

"I see everyone's awake!" A voice rang out.

"What's it to you!?" I yelled before I could stop myself. I sensed everyone's head turn to look at me. I tried not to pay any mind.

"My name is of no importance. Welcome to Blood's Island," The man said.

*"And what kind of stupid moron came up with that name!?" Kurogane yelled from behind me.* I secretly agreed with him, but didn't have the courage to say it outloud.

"The creator of the game you're about to play," The man said ominously.

"Sounds stupid. You kidnap us just to have us play a game?" Someone snapped.

"Brother..." Someone else muttered, upset. "No need to snap at everyone..."

"Anyway, I'm going to introduce you all to one another," The man said. I shivered. I had a bad feeling about this...

The man pointed to someone I obviously couldn't see. "That's Edward," He said. "He's an alchemist missing an arm and a leg." The boy, Edward, gasped.

"How did you-!?" He whispered, shocked, and possibly frightened. The mans aura darkened in what seemed like a dark grin, and then he continued.

"His brother's name is Alphonse. He's a living suit of armour. When he lost his body, his soul was put into it to save his life."

Alphonse wimpered.

"Brother...? This man scares me," He muttered. Edward didn't respond.

"The two love birds over there are Syaoran and Sakura," My face flushed bright red.

"What did you just call us!?" I hissed angrily through gritted teeth. I knew Sakura's face wasn't as red as mine. Only I seemed to get really embarrassed when this was said aloud. The man laughed.

"Sakura has a gift. She can talk to spirits that no one can see, and her body can remember things her mind can't." I felt her fists shake in fury. This type of thing were secret for a reason. If people knew this, we could get sent to a laboratory, living the rest of our lives as lab rats.

"Syaoran is blind," He continued.

"Shut up!!" I yelled, furious. I had always been quite secretive about being blind.

"He even has a clone on the island." I completely froze at that.

"Anyone but him..." I whispered quietly.

"Behind them, is the big black scary dude and the one eyed freak." I completely snapped at that. I charged at the man and kicked him, hard, in the face. The mans aura darkened in that evil way it had before.

"Big mistake," He said. Something knocked me down from behind, pinning me to the floor. I couldn't tell what it was, but it was big, and furry, and it's claws were sharp. It was very heavy. I felt my back beginning to give out under the pressure.

"Syaoran!" Sakura cried. The thing nibbled on my shoulder. I wimpered.

"Anyway, that shows you what not to do. I'll just leave you there for a while," The man said cheerfully. I swore a word that usually comes out of Kurogane's mouth and not mine.

"The black scary dude's father was eaten by monsters and his mother was murdered. He's been traveling the dimensions these days. The one eyed dude is a vampire." I struggled, trying to get out from the thing's grasp. I wanted to KILL this man. The thing dug it's teeth into my shoulder and sat down on me. I screamed another swear word very loudly. I heard some complaints against my language and some mumbles of pity.

"The kids in the back are Max and Fang. They are in denial about their love for each other and they both have wings." Max yelled out a swear word. Fang didn't move. The creature had bitten deep into my shoulder.

"What is this thing sitting on me!?" I screamed loudly, annoyed that I had to ask this.

"A giant rat." The man waved his hand as if it wasn't a big deal.

_iMust...control...my blood thirsty rage.../i _I thought, shaking, but it was more in pain as the rat began to gnaw to the bone in my shoulder.

"The three girls standing in a group are Adriane, Kara, and Emily. They're mages." I sensed something spark on one of their wrists.

"Don't attack!" I gasped in pain, not wanting anyone else hurt.

"Syaoran..." I heard Adriane mutter in sympathy.

"He's hot," I heard someone whisper into her ear, so quietly I could only hear it because I was blind, and that hightened my other senses.

"I didn't need to know that!!" I called out. The man completely ignored us.

"The wolves in the back are mistwolves. They come from a magical land and can fade into mist. The older one is a forest spirit." The two wolves growled furiously. I had given up struggling as the rat gnawed on my exposed shoulder bone. I was almost glad that I couldn't see the blood I felt running down my shoulder and onto the sand.

"To the right, you can see three dragons. Shardas, the king of dragons, Velika, the queen of dragons, who had some of her scales made into slippers, and Saphira. Saphira has a rider, but he's not important." Growls rumbled in the back of all of their throats.

"The snow white wolf in the back is Larka. She has the Sight, and can see through the eyes of birds." The white wolf wimpered and took a cautious step back.

"Over there is the clone I mentioned earlier. He was created by a man named Fei-Wang Reed. He's got no brains of his own."

"Speak for yourself," The clone muttered casually. I heard the man growl angrily at this. If I hadn't hated the clones guts, and if I wasn't being sat on by a rat, I would've applauded.

"Over there is Husky and Senri. Husky is the little mermaid turned into a boy, and Senri has a bear claw."

"LET ME AT HIM!!!" I heard Husky, who did sound kind of like a girl, yell furiously. His footsteps didn't approach, so I figured that he was being restrained.

"+Anima," Senri said. He grunted as the sound of someone kicking him sounded off. I figured he was the unlucky one who had to restrain Husky.

"Over there is Kamui." When I heard his name, my muscles tensed. This caused that rats feet to sink deeper into my back. I heard my back begin to crack some more from the rat's weight. I held back the urge to scream. I couldn't handle this much longer. The rat began to gnaw on my other shoulder. Sakura was wimpering, and I heard someone patting her back.

"He's a vampire. The one who turned Mr. One Eye into a vampire, to be exact. He has a brother who's name is...Toyota, or something-"

"Subaru," I gasped out before Kamui could. The rat's foot planted my head into the sand.

"Um...he IS right, you know." Kamui growled.

"I know, but there's no need for him to act smarter then me."

"He is!!" Sakura yelled in protest. Someone, I figured it was Kurogane, put his hand in front of her mouth to block the rest of her outburst.

"Where is Subaru!?" Kamui yelled. The man didn't answer.

"Over there is Rachel and Cassie. They can both change into animals. Any animal they touch, to be exact."

"No!" Rachel yelled aloud. "What if someone here is a yeerk!?"

"A what?" Everyone asked.

I nearly managed to laugh at the simultaneously asked question, but I couldn't bring myself to do that. The rat put more weight into its feet. I gasped for breath.

"Over there," the man pointed in some direction or another. "Is Ozzie. He's an elf turned into a ferret."

"Shut up!" Ozzie yelped.

I looked up. "Could you please get off of me?" I whispered so only the rat could hear. I ignored the bickering between the ferret and the man. The rat lowered it's mouth to my ear.

"Only if you're prepared to cry and beg," It said, it's hot, smelly breath disturbing my ears, and possibly my nose.

"You need a breath mint," I hissed back at it. Apparently, the rat didn't like that, because dug it's teeth sharply into my shoulder. I cried out, receiving a lot of glances, and another wimper from Sakura. I almost was ready to beg the man to get this rat off of me.

"Over there, glaring hatefully at each other, are Megaman and Bass. Weird names, yes? Well, they're living computer programs." I heard a small *chk chk* noise of a weapon being loaded. I felt someone glance at me, and then the person let the weapon drop to their side.

"Smart," I mumbled.

"Over there, is Ares. He's a giant bat from a world under the world." Ares flapped his wings.

"Don't mention it's name-" Ares began.

"It's called Underland. You would know we know about it, that's where the rat came from." I clenched my fists and managed to look up.

"If all of your residents are like this rat on top of me, remind me to never go to Underland," I managed to say before letting my head fall into the dirt. The rats front claws were tecnhically inside my spine now. The bat didn't respond.

"Over there are two other giant rats, Ripred, a rager, meaning born with the power to kill, and Twitchtip, with smell so strong it can detect color." Apparently, being a rager wasn't something you were proud of, because Ripred snarled furiously.

"I could attack you. I'm a rager, I could get the rat off that kids back right now!" Ripred yelled.

"And the rat on the kids back is also a rager. It might be able to kick your butt." The man stated cheerfully. Ripred angrily snarled and dug his claws into the sand.

"Over there, we've got Ax, and for reasons I shouldn't have to explain, you can tell he's not from here." I didn't get it, but apparently, everyone else did. There were gasps and murmurs of surprise while the poor...thing...cowered. The rat lowered it's mouth to my ear, obviously doing that because it knew I hated it.

"Imagine a deer. Give it a human head. Give it eyestalks. Give it a scorpion tail. Now imagine that it's blue. That's Ax." It was probably the weirdest picture I'd ever thought up, made hard to think up with the rat on my back. I planted my face in the sand, so no one could hear me, and wimpered.

"Over there, you see two more dragons. Drake, and Gadzooks. Gadzook's is made of clay, but can come to life. Drake thinks Adriane is its mother." Adriane wimpered and hid behind her friends. Or at least, that's what I guessed she did.

"OK, coming down to the end here..." I sighed in forced relief. Maybe then we would figure out what was going on, rather then listening to things people clearly didn't want us to hear.

"We have Kiba. Kiba is a wolf in disguise." Kiba clenched his fists.

"And, over here, we have Watanuki." I recognized the name instantly, but remembered not to tense or look up. I was worried that the rat would claw up my back more if I did. How much time had passed, anyway? I felt my back tremble. Drawing breaths grew harder.

"Watanuki can see, and very recently learned to control spirits." I pondered that as much as I could. Control spirits? That was interesting...how did that happen?

"And, that's everyone. Now to explain why you're here, and what you're to do-" The sentence was cut off by a loud SNAP. I screamed. The snap had been my back.

"GET THIS THING OFF OF ME!!!!!!!!!" I wailed at the top of my lungs. Thankfully, it wasn't a pitiful wail, but it probably sounded very desperate, because I could sense Kurogane shaking his head disapprovingly. i_If you think that YOU could handle it better...i _I knew that Kurogane and Fai hadn't helped because they knew there was nothing they could do. The man tapped his foot.

"I need you for one more example."

"JUST GET THE-" I said a minor swear word here. "-RAT OFF OF ME!!!!!!!!!!"

The man just laughed.

"Anyway, you're all here because, as you know, I know all about you. And so does a science lab on a nearby island. They want to study all of you."

There were yells of protest.

"So, we're going to play a game. It's simple. Your goal is to defeat your opponents...and your friends. Until you are the last one standing."

"And that's a game!? What if we refuse to go along!?" I believe it was Edward who yelled this.

"How did you know about our pasts!? Our secrets!?" Rachel added.

"You've all been out cold for three months," The man said. Everybody fell completely silent in shock.

"We've had plenty of time to work it out with the technology the lab that wants to study you has. We could discover it all in your minds."

"Kiss my-" I started. The rat put its claws around my neck, tightening the collar. I shut up.

"You all noticed that you're wearing collars? Your goal is to destroy the thick glass with the red haze in the back of those collars." I felt the rat's muzzle form into a smile above my head. "Here's a brief demonstration of what happens when you do." _Just my luck..._I thought.

The rat lunged at the back of my collar and snapped something in the back of it. I figured it was the small orb preventing Adriane from taking the collar off that she mentioned earlier. When it snapped, a small haze leaked out of it. The haze was completely odorless, but the effect it had was clear. I froze. My eyes fell half shut. My breathing completely halted. I went limp. The rat let me roll onto the sand in front of everyone. And yet I was still awake. But the feeling terrified me. I tried to open my mouth. Nothing happened. I felt gazes watching me in horror. Someone, probably Kurogane, picked me up by the shoulders, shook me back and forth, handed me to Fai, and charged at the man. The man smirked. The rat stood in Kurogane's way. Kurogane halted, snarling something about the man being a coward.

"The kid will be fine. However, that collar is currently reloading itself, and the chamber holding the poisonous haze fixing itself. In the real game,-"

"This isn't a game! You're pitting us against each other!" Max screeched. The man ignored her.

"Once the chamber is broken, you'll be teleported to the lab. It's the most high-tech lab in history. Nothing's ever escaped from it. I've heard their experiments are pretty gruesome, too." Some people breathed in sharply through gritted teeth.

"There are radiowaves in your collar. If you try to leave the island, and the radiowaves lose connection to the collar, the thick glass containing the poisonous haze breaks by default. It's the same if you leave the island and get too close to the tower. If you refuse to play, after seven days, assassins with the intention to kill you are released." The man grinned.

"If, of course, you find a painless 'death' a better idea then going to the lab, or a better idea then being killed, there's always this option..." He took out another collar. He typed in about five numbers in a hidden keypad, and a small cord appeared in the side. "If you break this cord, the collar completely erases you out of existance. It's quick, and it's painless." People stared in surprise and horror.

"The codes you type in are already provided for you. They were implanted into your memory while you were unconcious." Everyone seemed to go into deep thought. I was still trying to breathe, I was hardly even thinking, let alone remembering anything like that.

"The red haze fills the collar on the inside along with wires, so if the collar is broken, the haze is released. The haze container can be broken only by taking off the collar or with a weapon. I think the weapons you have at hand should be good." Everyone seemed to tense. He was talking about some of our powers.

"You are all from different dimensions, and for that reason, you can not write to each other over the collars, as you all use a different writing system."

"Then why can we talk to each other, then??" Kurogane growled. The man held, what I sensed as a squirming bunny, by the ears.

"Mokona!!!" Sakura wailed. The tried to run and grab Mokona, but Fai held her back.

"This thing translates your speach." The man said simply. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I was fuming. Mokona had disappeared sometime before I could remember, and it turns out it was kidnapped so it could translate our speech!?

"You will all be randomly teleported to a spot in the island. There are informers in your collar connected to your brain. You will get messages letting you know who has been defeated. If you have any questions, the keypad in the collar can do that, too. Good luck to you all." I couldn't tell if I had been teleported or not, but by the sound, everyone else had. Kurogane, Fai, and Sakura hadn't moved. I heard the man's footsteps walking towards me.

"Feel lucky it wasn't worse," The man said, and disappeared.

I tried to regain my breath. I slowly felt myself coming to when the pain in my shoulders and back went off. As soon as I got a good breath, I used it to yell out a curse word at the man. My mind raced. A battle on an uncharted island where no one could find us, where we had to send each other to h-e-double toothpicks on Earth. And only one of us could win. That meant...I had to fight Kurogane, Fai, and Sakura...? There was no way I could do it. There was no way I could sentence them to life in a lab while I lived free. And could I even do that to those strangers? What had they ever done to me? My thoughts began to fade and I let my eyes fall shut.


	3. Chapter 3

_Day Two_

POV: Kamui

I stared at the ceiling. I had decided to make camp in a cave the night before. It was always where I felt the most comfortable when I traveled. I had pondered most of the night, my thoughts completely scattered and unorganized. What had those people done with Subaru? Maybe Subaru had gotten away...? I couldn't remember anything before I had blacked out for...what had the man said? Three months? That was way too long. What was everyone on this island going to do? Who was there to trust? Was Syaoran going to be OK? That whole rat incident looked like it must've hurt. What were the assassins? How powerful were they? Was anyone going to be stupid enough to erase themselves from existance? What was that stupid lab like? Did I even want to know?

If anyone could fall asleep last night, then they must have been dumber then a rock.

I stood up after about twelve long hours had passed. There was no point sitting down and doing nothing. I couldn't lose this "competition." I couldn't die here. I left the cave, deciding to see if I could find any game. Game, of course, being food. I walked around for about ten minutes before I decided it was useless. What were the chances of finding game on an island with dragons on it? Suddenly, I heard the bushes rustle. My head shot up and I swung around. Something white leapt from the bushes.

"What the-!?" I managed to yell before whatever had leapt swiped its claws across my forehead. I staggered backwards, but managed to keep my balance. The wounds healed on the spot. It was on the of the few advantages of being a vampire. I shook my head to clear my thoughts and turned to see a white wolf snarling at me, teeth bared.

"Larka," I remembered vaguely. I had also spent some of that night running over peoples names, because I had been so tired there was nothing else to do. I was wide awake. now.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"What does it look like?" She growled. "I can't go to any lab, I need to find Fell!" I didn't have the time to ask who the heck Fell was, as she leapt at me again. My nails lengthened into claws, something else I could do as a vampire. I slashed at her side and she hit the floor, hard.

"Game," I said, smirking, as I licked her blood off my claws. She gasped in pain. "You chose the wrong person to attack first. I don't care if you need to see 'Fell' again. I need to see my brother again."

"And why's that!?" Larka growled.

"We keep each other in check," I admitted with a shrug. It was true. It was more like he kept ME from being a violent pushy murderer. But I wasn't going to admit THAT. Now that Larka was weakened and on the ground, there was not much left for me to do.

"It's over," I growled. I lowered my claws to the red chamber on her collar, pulled my arm back, and pierced it with a sharp jolt. The crack was sharp and hurt my ears. The wolf gasped for breath and fell still. Her eyes grew clouded, and the mist swirled around her, covering her body. When the mist faded, her body was gone. All that showed she had ever been here was her collar. I picked it up and stared at the numbers that had appeared on it: 10683.

"Larka..." I said quietly.

"So, this is where the competition starts," I stated to the air. I shrugged and turned around. "She started it," I assured myself, and walked to the cave, glad that I had at least found some game.

------

POV: Velika

A small message rang in my mind as I tried to rest. _Subject 10683 defeated. _I had nearly managed to sleep, too, knowing I was under the protection of Shardas, my mate. But as soon as I heard this, I jolted upright. I nearly called to Shardas, but he flew through the clearing before I could. He sighed in relief.

"I was worried something bad had happened to you. Are you alright?" He asked urgently. I nodded slowly.

"Who's subject 10683?" I asked. Shardas shook his head.

"It doesn't matter. All that does matter is that those humans are up to no good..." I nodded. "Humans have always been a problem," I admitted, remembering quite well some problems I had with them... Everything fell silent for a moment.

"I say we get rid of them," He said suddenly. I gasped.

"You mean as in...k-k...kill them...!?" I stammered. That wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind. "Isn't that a little harsh?" Shardas shook his head.

"That's what that weird moron told us to do, right? Well, I wouldn't mind. All these humans are going to do is cause trouble."

I shook my head.

"I don't know," I whispered.

"I'll just start a fire. I'll let that do what it may," Shardas suggested. I sighed and nodded reluctantly. Shardas meant well, but was this really the right thing to do? Shardas slowly walked over to the outskirts of the forest. He breathed out a small jet of golden flames. The flames quickly exploded into a raging fire. He flapped his wings so the breeze led the flames into the forest and away from us. I couldn't watch anymore. I turned away. Shardas walked over to me and put his head on my shoulder.

"I guess there's nothing else for us to do now," I said. Silence followed.

"I won't lose you again, Velika," He whispered. I smiled. As long as Shardas and I had each other, we would be OK.

-----

POV: Fai

I pretended to wake up from my sleep. Of course, I hadn't actually slept, I just wanted Kurogane and Sakura to stop worrying about me. I had chosen to ignore the message of the person or animal being defeated. Sakura had spent most of the night taking care of Syaoran, that I was sure of. Kurogane was ranting furiously under his breath when I'd left to "sleep" in the shelter of a tree. When I 'woke up,' he glanced at me.

"You actually managed to get some sleep?" He asked dryly.

"What do you think?" I asked, grinning. I noticed he was covered in scratches. My eyes narrowed. "What happened?" I asked.

"I taught the princess how to fight," He mumbled. The princess, of course, was Sakura. "I went easy on her. She picked up the strategies with the sword faster then I expected."

"Where did you get two swords?" I asked. I didn't need to. Syaoran had one with him, and so did Kurogane. Neither of them had been taken away. Perhaps Kurogane knew that I already knew this, because he didn't answer.

"How's Syaoran-kun?" I asked, changing the topic. Kurogane shook his head.

"Still unconcious. He really should think twice before he attacks someone like that."

I laughed at this.

"Because we all knew the man was aligned with giant rats," I said sarcastically. "You looked angrier then he did! If he didn't attack, you would've."

I wondered if the sword Syaoran wore on his back had injured his back even more. He seemed to have forgotten it was there. Kurogane changed the subject.

"Anyway, The princess really needs to get some sleep. She's been fussing about the kid all night." Kurogane always called Syaoran a kid.

"I figured," I said, then I stood up. "I'll try and get her to sleep." I walked away before Kurogane could object. I found her in the clearing putting some type of bandage around Syaoran's shoulder. The strips of cloth looked like they probably had come from the arm of her long sleeved shirt.

"Hello, Sakura-chan," I said. Her head snapped up.

"Good morning, Fai-san!" She greeted, smiling. I was glad she could still smile after the whole ordeal.

"You should get some sleep," I said, going straight to the point. She frowned and cocked her head as if she didn't know what I was talking about. I laughed.

"If you're worried about Syaoran-kun, I'll wake you if he wakes up." She thought about it, then sighed. "OK," She agreed reluctantly, then stood up. As she walked into the bushes, I glanced at her. "Wait a moment." I said. She stopped, curiously walking back over to me. My eyes narrowed.

"Is something wrong?" Sakura asked.

"Get Kurogane," I said quickly. She ran off and came back with Kurogane a couple seconds later.

"What now?" He growled. I waited to confirm my worries before I spoke.

"There's a fire headed this way," I said. "We should go, now."

Sakura's eyes widened in surprise. "A fire...?" She asked. "But I don't see anything..."

Kurogane didn't question me. He grabbed Syaoran and ran from the forest. I followed, with Sakura, completely confused, behind me. As we reached the shore of the beach, which thankfully wasn't too far away, it was clear that there had been a fire. We watched as the flames flew through the forest.

"I wonder how that happened?" I asked. I didn't get an answer, not that I'd expected one. Eventually, lots of people broke through the forest trees. Some of them were burnt, and one person even ran into the ocean to extinguish flames on her arm. Suddenly, a voice rang out across the shore.

"Subject 84325 defeated." Everyone froze and looked around. I stared at the trees, waiting to see if anyone else would come out. Eventually, one more person did run out of the trees. I remembered the kid. He had blonde hair, and he was really short. Glancing at his metal arm, I remembered his name was Edward. In his hand, he held a collar. Everyone stood, gazing at him, confused.

"Al..." He mumbled sadly, glancing at the collar. I remembered the living suit of armour, who was his brother. So that's who had been defeated. A girl stepped forward. I vaguely remembered her name being Emily, one of the three mages. She slowly approached him and sympathetically put her hand on his shoulder.

"Be careful..." I heard her friend, who's name I remembered was Adriane, warn her. She had been right to warn her, too. Edward swung around and struck Emily across the face with his metal hand. She flew backwards with a cry of surprise. Adriane called him a swear word before charging furiously at him, with her two wolves by her side, and striking him with golden light from her bracelet. Sakura ran over to Adriane to try to stop her from attacking Ed, but her older wolf, Stormbringer, leapt at Sakura. Kurogane, furious, shoved Syaoran into my hands and charged at the wolf, knocking her to the side with his sword. The younger wolf, Dreamer, leapt at Kurogane. Kurogane sidestepped and Dreamer crashed into Max. Max kicked at Dreamer, but missed and ended up kicking Megaman's collar, which sparked and fell apart. The red haze swirled around him and he disappeared. With that, everyone started fighting.

------

POV: Sakura

The reaction to the exploding collar was huge. Everyone started attacking on another. I fearfully ran over to Kurogane.

"I gave your sword to the vampire," He said.

"How come you never use our name-"

"There's no TIME for that!" He yelled as a beam of golden light lashed at him. He barely managed to dodge. I nodded and turned around. Fai was laughing as he dodged a very angry bear boy, who's name I remembered was Senri. He stopped dodging, smiled, and handed me the sword casually before running away laughing from a now very POed Senri. I tried to look for Syaoran, as Fai had obviously put him down. I noticed that Clone Syaoran was walking over to him.

"Oh, no you don't," I hissed through gritted teeth. I charged, and caught him by surprise as I opened a shallow wound in his foot. I didn't really want to hurt him any more then that. He swung around and kicked me in the face. Seeing as I was new at fighting, I didn't managed to dodge, and fell to the ground. The clone walked over to me, but before he could speak, he fell over and landed hard on his side. "What...?" I asked aloud, grabbing my sword and scrambling to my feet. The Clone had never actually TRIPPED in battle before...

I noticed someone from the corner of my eye.

"Syaoran!" I said happily. He had tripped the clone over.

"Good morning..." He grumbled as he stood up. The clone pulled to his feet, but before he could do anything else, he got caught up in a battle with Ax, and faded from sight.

"What's going on? Where am I? Are we fighting? What day is it?" I put my hand over his mouth.

"I'll explain later. We're fighting."

"Over what?"

I felt really bad for Syaoran at that moment. This was probably the worst time for him to wake up. And he was blind. That must've been hard. Syaoran suddenly looked thoughtful.

"I hear something," He said. My eyebrows raised.

"Other then people fighting?" I asked. He nodded. The look on his face worried me.

"Is that giant bat here?" He asked. I was surprised he even remembered it. But there WAS a giant _rat_ sitting on him, so maybe that made it easier to remember? ...Hm. Not sure where that line of logic came from. Back on topic.

"Yes. But-"

"I'm going to talk to him," He said. I grabbed his shoulder. He flinched, and I pulled my hand back.

"No! Are you insane!?" He shook his head.

"It has echolocation. It might be able to see what's in the forest, even if no one else can."

"The forest...!? The forest's on FIRE, Syaoran!" His eyes narrowed. He grabbed his head and muttered something about a headache before looking up.

"I know I hear something..." He mumbled. I made a snap decision there.

"I'll talk to it." I said. Syaoran opened his mouth to object, but I put my hand on his shoulder and he sighed.

"If it attacks you, I swear..." I smiled.

"Kurogane taught me how to fight while you were unconcious. Don't worry about me." I walked away and nervously put my hand on the bats side. It swung around and attempted to smash me out of the way.

"I won't hurt you!" I yelled. To prove it, I swung around, sword in hand, and slashed it over Kiba's muzzle as he leapt at the bat's collar. He wimpered and backed off to fight someone else. The bat seemed to relax.

"I'm Ares, in case you don't remember my name. What do you need?" I smiled.

"I'm Sakura. Syaoran-" I pointed to Syaoran.

"How could I forget the poor kid that Bloodbite sat on?" The bat said.

"Sounds like a vampire." I said dryly as Kamui ran by, slashing his claws down someone's face.

"Well, he says he hears something..." The bat glanced at Syaoran.

"A weird buzzing, humming noise, coming from the forest. It's probably nothing..." He didn't sound like he thought it was probably nothing, though.

"How many?"

The responce from Syaoran was slow. "...A lot..."

"He was hoping you'd use echolocation to find out what they are," I said. The bat nodded and did this weird hop towards the blazing forest. Syaoran and I stood in front of Ares to be sure no one attacked him. The bat made a few clicking noises before turning around.

"We've got to go, NOW!" Ares said frantically. Syaoran nodded, but I raised my eyebrow.

"They're mites. UNDERLAND mites." Syaoran and I both cocked our heads.

""Flesh eating mites. They could strip something my size down to the skeleton in seconds."

That got our attention. The bat swung around and let out a giant shreik that caused everyone to stop fighting on the spot to block their ear.

"Unless you all want to die right now, we've got to get going! There are tens of thousands of deadly, flesheating mites on the way here from the burning forest!" This caused an eruption of talking and people getting back into their groups of friends. Kurogane and Fai rushed over to us, then they noticed Syaoran was awake.

"Good morning!" Fai said. Syaoran jumped and crashed to the floor.

"What the-!?" I yelped. I helped him to his feet.

"It's nothing-" He started.

"His back's snapped. There might be something up with his walking. But there's not time to worry about it now," Kurogane snapped.

"Then don't bring it up," Syaoran whined. He received a sharp look from Kurogane, but being blind, I wasn't sure he knew. Ares was frantic, not sure if he trusted anyone on his back. I wasn't sure if he thought we could escape on foot. As much as that battling had caused some hatred, I don't think anyone wanted to see anyone skinned alive by mites. Ares made a snap decision.

"Sakura, Syaoran, the warrior, and the healer!" The bat looked at Adriane and Emily at these last names. "Get on my back. Ripred, Twitchtip, you can run. Twitchtip, if Rachel and Cassie morph into something small, you can probably carry them to safety." Twitchtip snarled.

"Why should I bother-" Ripred nudged her in the side with his snout, and she continued grumbling.

"Ripred, you're strong, you could probably carry Ozzie and the Blazing Car-"

"Star!" Kara yelled indignantly.

"Whatever! You can carry them out of here. Storm, Dreamer, you're mist thingies, right?"

"Mistwolves!" They barked indignantly.

"I still don't care! Shroud people in mist! They eat flesh, not mist! Max, Fang, fly. Kiba, you have stamina, run. Bass, you're a living computer program. I don't think they'll even try to eat you. Everyone else...think of something! I'm out of ideas!!" These ideas were more then enough, however, and people were quickly getting prepared to leave.

"You four, hop on!" I glanced at Ares, and climbed on. I stared at the rest of the giant group.

The two mistwolves were beginning to hide people from sight. Drake and Firedrake couldn't fly, for their wings had been injured in battle. The two mistwolves, together, almost managed to hide everyone before barking out that they couldn't de-materialize their bodies any further, and that some people wouldn't be able to hide in the mist. Husky, Fai and Kurogane immediately volunteered to leave the mist. Husky jumped into the ocean, and a fishtail flopped out before disappearing into the water.

"Kurogane...Fai..."

"They'll be fine," Syaoran whispered to me. "If anyone can get away from tens of thousands of killer insects, it would be those two." I nodded. They had done a lot harder. But in the back of our minds, both Syaoran and I were concerned. And we both knew it.

Ares took off to the air, Max and Fang flying after us but quickly turning in the opposite direction. Ripred and Twitchtip quickly scattered around the shore away from the humming, which now everyone could hear. Bass just turned away and walked into the flames. By the time the mites were out of the forest, we were safe. But what was noticeable was how many there were and how fast they were moving. At that moment, I swallowed fearfully and hugged Syaoran, who yelped in surprise and nearly fell of Ares.

"Are you sure Kurogane and Fai will be ok...?" I asked.

"Syaoran won't be if you knock him off Ares." Adriane said. I turned around.

"Do you have an alliance with Ares?" I asked, curious why he had called them the warrior and the healer and let them ride him.

"Yes, Emily's the healer. Ares was injured by something in the forest. We aren't sure what, but it was big, green, and had sharp elbow blades, shoulder blades, and knee blades. Emily healed him. We've had an alliance since then." I nodded. That made sense.

"Was your friend the one who called me hot while I was being sat on by that rat?" Syaoran asked. I frowned.

"Someone called you hot?" I asked, my face going a little red with anger. Emily covered her mouth, probably to hide a giant grin.

"Her name's Kara. She's so annoying. I didn't need to think twice before taking off on Ares without her and leaving her to travel on a giant RAT." Syaoran laughed, then glanced at me.

"Your face is red." He noted. Adriane burst out laughing. Emily stared at Syaoran with interest.

"How do you know that if you can't see it?" She asked. He shrugged. It was clear he didn't want to talk about it.

We landed in a part of the forest that miraculously hadn't caught fire.

"Thank you, Ares." I said when we landed. I gave the bat a hug, cautiously being sure that I didn't touch his collar. Syaoran's hand tightened on his sword in case Ares tried to smash my collar, but he made no move to try and break the collar. I took a step back and smiled. The bat smiled back, if it was possible.

"I guess all we can do is wait," Syaoran muttered.

-----

POV: Adriane

"What do you mean?" I asked, tilting my head. He sighed.

"I shouldn't say anything..." But we got the point. He was talking about Ozzie, Kara, Stormbringer and Dreamer. And their friends, the ones who were in the most danger.

"Who were your friends over there, anyway? The 'Black Emo Dude and the One Eyed Freak,' they were called?" Syaoran clenched his fist and Sakura bit her lip.

"Kurogane-" Syaoran began.

"And Fai," Sakura finished.

I only realized then how much I'd just Tee'd them off.

"I'm sorry-...Um..I'll set up camp." I volunteered quickly, then ran off. I collected firewood, mainly, hoping they could come up with something else to do in the meantime. I looked up and noticed two shapes moving in the distance...

"Storm? Dreamer?" I called.

"We're here," Said the familiar voice. Relief flooded into me. I dropped the wood and caught the mistwolves in a hug.

"It's good to see you again. Everyone's fine..." Storm stopped.

"But?" I asked, concerned.

"The mites went right after the two not surrounded by mist." Dreamer sounded really guilty. "It's my fault! If I weren't such a runt..." I shook my head.

"No, you did your best. Besides, we haven't heard anything about them, right? They could be OK." I was more trying to assure myself.

"We collected some wood." The two wolves signalled to well balanced wood piles on their backs.

"Thanks." I said. I collected the wood I had dropped and we walked back to camp.

Emily smiled when I came back with the two by my side. Syaoran didn't notice, and even if he could see, his eyes were closed, and Sakura smiled. But it was obvious that she was miserable. She couldn't hide it well.

"It's good to see you're OK." Sakura said, trying to sound enthusiastic. Syaoran cocked his head, opening one eye. "Storm and Dreamer," Sakura said. He nodded and closed his eye again. Then, Syaoran technically collapsed on the spot.

"I thought he was unconcious most of the day?" I asked.

"I'm not sure if that counts as sleep," I said, shrugging my shoulders. Ares stood up, and leaned Syaoran against his side.

"It's more comfortable then dirt and rock," He said. He unwrapped his wing and put it around all of us. We all leaned against Ares side. Despite the frost in the air, his fur was warm, and we crashed.

The four of us jolted awake at the sound of an alarm going off in our collars.

"What is it?" I asked. We pressed down a glowing red button. The message rang clear in our heads.

"We would like to apologize for the mite attack. We had no idea they were on the island." We were all holding our breath. What was so urgent that they had to talk to the entire island?

"We would like to inform you that Fai and Kurogane have died. Pieces of skeleton were found on the shore, and they have been tested at the lab. It's 100% sure that the bones found were theres." I held back a small gasp and tried not to look at Syaoran and Sakura's faces. This must be devastating for them. Emily, however, was shivering. She must've been imagine what it was like to die like that. Eaten alive by mites. I shuddered, too.

When the speaker in the microphone turned off, Sakura wailed in despair. I turned to look at the two. Sakura was hugging Syaoran so tight I was worried she was choking him. But Syaoran didn't care. Despair and horror filled his eyes. He was hugging her back. Emily put her hand on his shoulder. I put my hand on Sakura's. "I'm so sorry..." Emily whispered. There was nothing else we could say. Storm and Dreamer howled. The mournful howls rung across the air and hung there for a long time.


	4. Chapter 4

_Day Three_

POV: Edward

My eyes shot open. I sat up and rubbed my eyes with my metal hand, trying to recollect my thoughts. What had happened last night...? I remembered slowly. The mites had come in. We, being me and nearly everyone on the island, had been standing back to back while shrouded in mist. The mites had turned and chased the ninja and the one eyed vampire. Everyone had run...I remembered having been forced to run into the forest. And the smoke...I remembered being unable to breathe...and I vaguely remembered falling unconcious. So where was I? I shook my head.

"Finally awake, aren't you?" I heard a voice say. I swung around. A blue dragon stood over me. I stared in awe.

"Don't just sit there," The dragon, apparently a female, said. "Get up." She nudged me to my feet.

"Who are you?" I asked.

"Velika," She responded. "You are Edward, right?" I nodded. I noticed a X shaped scar across the dragons chest.

"When did that happen?" I asked curiously.

"Hundreds of years ago," She whispered. She sounded upset. I nodded sympathetically.

"Do you want to explain why you have metal limbs?" She asked me. I shook my head. It wasn't a story that I liked to talk about.

"What are you holding?" Velika nudged the collar in my hand. I remembered Al suddenly.

"My brother was defeated in the fire," I said sadly, not looking at her directly. Velika's eyes narrowed.

"You should get going soon. I'm not sure my mate would appreciate humans on the beach where we're staying," She said quickly.

"Why am I here?" I asked. She shook her head. "I found you unconcious and not breathing. I didn't want anyone on the island dead. I guess it's too late for that..." I cocked my head.

"Did I miss something?" I asked.

"Some mite attack. Two people were eaten alive. No one knows where the mites went off too, though," She sounded very concerned. I frowned.

"Must not be a pleasant way to die," I said bluntly, looking around slightly. She nodded. Something gold flickered in the trees.

"You should go. Right now!" Velika repeated. She sounded frantic this time. I nodded, not taking the time to ask who Shardas was, but before I could leave, the flicker of gold crashed onto the shore and pinned me to the ground. It was a dragon. _So this is Shardas. Please get off me before you crush my shoulders, _I thought, but I kept my mouth shut.

"What are you doing here!?" A gold dragon snarled.

"Shardas..." Velika whispered urgently. "I rescued him from the fire. Don't worry, he won't harm us. Besides, have you noticed his height? He's tiny!"

"Who are you calling short!?" I yelled.

"You?" Shardas suggested, removing his front claws from my shoulders.

"Why you little..." I snarled, then took a deep breath. I didn't want to anger the dragons. "Thanks for pulling me out of the flames. I should get going now," I said calmly. I turned around and walked into the now burnt trees. Before I left earshot, I heard Shardas whisper "He's gone. Listen, what were you thinking!?" I sneaked behind a tree and eavesdropped, more then a little bit curious about what they were talking about.

"Velika, why did you rescue the human from the flames?" Shardas asked.

"Because, I didn't think it was fair for someone to die and burn in the fire," Velika responded. "The fire already sent his brother to the lab. Did he really need to die as well?"

"Well, you don't expect for him to win, do you?" Shardas asked. He breathed out a puff of smoke into the trees, and I surpressed a cough as I inhaled some.

"Well, no..." She looked thoughtful. "Just don't start another one of those fires again." My eyes widened. Shardas had started the fire. Which means...it was his fault that Al was at the lab.

After realizing this, I completely short-circuited. I clapped my hands together, and my metal arm turned into a sword. It was something I could do with alchemy. I sprinted from the trees, leapt, and slashed my sword across Shardas's collar. It snapped and hit the floor. Shardas froze, either from the poison in the collar or from shock, but it didn't matter. The red haze swirled into the air, and within seconds, Shardas had disappeard.

_"Subject 76268 defeated."_

Velika stared in either horror or fury. I couldn't tell.

"You..." She hissed furiously.

"Shardas defeated my brother. He deserved it!" I shouted furiously.

Velika COMPLETELY exploded. She roared furiously, and before I knew what had happened, her tail collided with my stomach, and I flew into a burnt tree. The tree crumbled, and a branch knocked me in the head. Before I could get to my feet, Velika sent a jet of flames at me. It hit my metal foot, but seeing as it was metal, nothing really happened. I struggled to my knees, clapped my hands, and used alchemy to form the sand, some dead trees, and some of Shardas's neck scales, which had come off when I had attacked him, into a cannon. It fired off, and a scale nailed Velika in the eye. She screeched in pain and grabbed me in her claws. She closed her hands slowly around my stomach, causing two things to happen at once: All of the air exited my lungs and I threw up. She didn't intend to stop their either. I heard a loud crack as some of my ribs snapped, and breathing became impossible. I knew then she intended to kill me. But... I couldn't die...not yet...

I pulled my metal hand free from her claws, and grabbed my collar. It snapped off with one hard tug. She stared in surprise. My vision blurred. I felt myself hit the floor, and heard the shattering of some of my bones. Even though she had let go of me, I couldn't breath. I curled into a ball and grabbed my stomach. I coughed out a lot of blood, and the red haze clouded my vision...

_Subject 28423 defeated._

------

POV: Ripred

I rolled my eyes as I heard of the next defeat. These overlanders were weird. The blazing car had taken off with the talking ferret like the little ninny she was as soon as we had put her down. The two fleas, who had been the morphing girls, had disappeared to who knows where. I grabbed a piece of burnt wood to gnaw on and walked over to Twitchtip, who had her nose buried in the dirt. She didn't even aknowledge that I was there. I sat down without as much as a greeting.

"Get your nose out of the dirt, it probably smells worse then I do," I said. Twitchtip snorted.

"Something smells off," She said simply. She reluctantly pulled her nose from the dirt, gave a quick sniff, and rammed her nose into the dirt. "I like this smell better," She whined.

"Always the charmer," I joked, but I stood up. "Which direction does the scent come from? I'll find it." She signalled with her tail somewhere on the beach shore. I nodded, then turned and ran through some bushes. That had been one weird fire. It had touched a lot of the forest, and left some parts of it unscathed. I shook the thought away and ran through the bushes, something that had been untouched. As I reached the shore, I noticed something was up. I scented the air. I didn't need to be a scent seer to smell what Twitchtip had. I lowered my nose to the sand.

Something glinted from behind me. My rager senses kicked in. I swung around and struck my attacker in the neck with my tail. There was a small snap, and a shreik of rage. A blade slashed at my claw, and I leapt to the side. Pain ripped through my back, and with a screech of fury, I flew into a spin attack. The spin attack was one of the most lethal attacks I knew. It could rip out the throat of the nearest attacker before they knew it. The creatures were lucky enough to be out of the way. As soon as they saw they couldn't hurt me, they darted out of sight. I watched them go. There were two of them, they were green, and they had sharp blades on their elbows, knees, and shoulders.

"What the heck were those?" I heard Twitchtip ask. I turned around.

"No idea. Let's head back to the safety of the burnt trees. I want to gnaw on the burnt wood." We walked back through the bushes.

-----

POV: Rachel

I shook my head as I demorphed from my hork-bajir form.

"We just can't seem to get the whole concepts of defeating out opponents right, can we?" I asked Cassie, who demorphed silently next to me. She didn't respond. She hardly ever did anymore. I pretended that it bugged me, but I was actually really worried about her. I nudged her.

"Come on, cheer up!" I said. She didn't respond. I sighed and gave up covering my concern. "What's wrong?" I asked. She shook her head. I gave her a light shove. "Cassie," I said, stopping where I stood. Cassie turned and stared at me. "What's up?" I said more firmly this time.

Cassie, very suddenly, burst into tears. "Cassie...??" I asked, slightly startled.

"I can't keep this up, Rachel!" She wailed. I blinked. "I can't stand hurting these creatures anymore!" I remembered, very suddenly, that Cassie loved animals. And everything we had attacked so far had been an animal. A bat, a wolf, and now, two rats.

Nice going, me.

"Listen, Cass-"

"I've had it!" She yelled, suddenly very angry. I jumped back. "I don't want to go to the lab, I don't want to send others to the lab...-" She punched in five numbers on the side of her collar. A wire appeared on her collar.

"Cassie, you can't be serious..." I whispered. But I knew from the look in her eyes that she was.

"Listen. I trust your ability to win this competition. When you do...tell Jake that I love him." With that, the wire on her collar snapped. A blue mist swirled around her instead of the red mist.

"Cassie!" I cried desperately. It completely covered her, and when it disappeared from sight, her collar was the only thing that showed she had ever existed. "Cassie..." I whispered, devastated. Suddenly, I heard a tiny *boink!" noise behind me. I swung around, but I only caught sight of a creepy purple eye pulling back into the forest...

_Subject 28986 erased._


	5. Chapter 5

_Day Four_

POV: Emily

I awoke, rather restless. It had been a horrible day, by the sounds of it. Someone had actually gone as far as to erase themselves...It was a frightening thought. And two people were defeated. We didn't even know who they were. I sighed deeply.

"I wish I knew where Ozzie was..." I whispered. I'd heard nothing from Ozzie since we had split up at the beach. I wondered if he had stayed with the two rats. Probably not. Kara had probably run from the rats without so much as a thank you as soon as they had carried her to safety. And she would most likely have taken Ozzie, too. For all I knew, the two defeated the day before could've been Ozzie and Kara...I shoved the thought away.

I heard a rustle in the bush, which interuppted my thoughts. I swung around. It was Adriane. She had brought back some food. Any game on the island had come here, since it was one of the few untouched parts of the forest. I felt horrible seeing Adriane holding a deer. I wanted to burst into tears. But that would've have been right.

"Hello," I said quietly. Adriane nodded in greeting.

"I'm sorry that we have to kill the deer," She said. I nodded, unable to speak. The two mistwolves padded away into two small caves.

"Let Ares sleep!" Adriane called after them. There were barks of approval, and soon after, the two came back with Syaoran and Sakura. They both looked more distant then they had the day before. I glanced at Syaoran. He had let me heal the wounds on his shoulders and his back inflicted by the rat on the first day the day before. When I had healed the wounds, I had felt them for a moment. They had hurt. I was shocked that he hadn't even seemed to notice them.

"Please, have something to eat," I whispered, referring to both of them, but particularly Syaoran, who had refused to eat the day before. Sakura had eaten, but I had a feeling she might've thrown up. Losing Kurogane and Fai had been a hard impact on them.

Syaoran shook his head. "I couldn't if I tried," He muttered.

"I could chew your food for you," Stormbringer joked.

"I probably would want to eat it less if you did that," Syaoran said, but he gave a hollow smile to let us know that he knew it was a joke. I glanced at Sakura. If anyone could talk Syaoran into eating, as he probably hadn't for four days, it was her.

Sakura got the message and whispered something to Syaoran, who whispered something back. There was a small conversation before Syaoran sighed and gave in. Sakura agreed to eat, too. They both ate very little before standing up and going to find something to take their minds off of the competition. I ate my share before standing up.

"I'm going to find Sakura. I want to see if there's anything I can do to make her feel better," I said quietly. "You should go find Syaoran, I bet you would talk to him better then me." She nodded and stood up.

"You can eat the rest, Storm, Dreamer," They both only needed to hear the word "eat" before violently eating the deer. I laughed slightly, covering my nausea, before going to find Sakura. She wasn't hard to find, either. She was leaning against a tree, deep in thought. I put my hand on her shoulder, jerking her from her thoughts.

"I'm really sorry." I said quietly. Tears flooded to Sakura's eyes, and I felt a surge of empathy run through me. I frowned. "You have every right to be upset. I was just wondering if there was anything I could do to cheer you up." I couldn't think of anything else to say. Sakura shook her head. She opened her mouth to speak when something shook in the tree. My head shot up. Sakura leapt to her feet, almost as if she expected the mites to appear. But instead, it was a brown ferret...

"Ozzie!" I cried happily.

-----

POV: Kara

I walked through the trees, trying to avoid touching any of them. This forest was disgusting! I had lost track of how many times I had seen disturbing bugs that made me want to puke. I had let Ozzie go for a stroll, but I had gotten bored, and decided to look for something to keep as a memento, maybe a pretty stone or something of the like. But it didn't take long for me to get lost, and I hadn't found any pretty stones. I clutched my unicorn jewel, glad to feel it's energy run through me. I remembered Emily's unicorn jewel and made a face. It wasn't fair! Only I should have a unicorn jewel...

My thoughts were distracted when something crashed into me. "Watch it!" I yelled, only to realize I had crashed into a tree. I blushed, embarrassed, and decided not to get lost in my thoughts again. I saw the beach ahead, and decided to head there, instead. I turned around, making sure to avoid a puddle, and walked on to the shore. The sun made me smile. It was good to be out here.

I walked along the shore for hours, running my fingers through the water, letting my toes sink into the sand, letting the air cool me down, as the air was a lot fresher then the stuffy air in the forest, when I heard the sound of someone talking. I froze and lowered my head, trying to listen to the conversation. I only caught small sentences.

"Death..." In a male voice. "Shut up..." A female voice this time. The word "promise" by both of them. The sound of something ripping through the air. The female voice muttered one other thing before everything fell silent. I couldn't take the pressure of just listening anymore. I ran in.

What I saw surprised me. I remembered the boy quite well: his name was Syaoran. He was unconcious with a giant, ragged scar on his back. In front of him was Adriane.

"What did you do!?" I shreiked.

"Nice to see you too, Barbie!" Adriane said cheerfully, faking a smile before frowning and glaring at me. I just stared at Syaoran.

"He asked me to knock him out. It wasn't something I wanted to do," Adriane whispered.

"Why did you listen to him???" I yelled.

"Well, he was really upset about the death of his friends. I reminded him of his girlfriend, and he asked to be knocked out. I think his concience has been getting to him," She shrugged.

"Who's his girlfriend?" I snarled, more angrily then I had intended. Adriane held back a loud laugh.

"Sakura. They're both trying to manage the deaths of Kurogane and Fai." I stared blankly. Who...? Adriane narrowed her eyes and looked at me like I was stupid.

"Well, who do you think I'm talking about? Only two people have died!" Adriane growled.

"I know that!" I snapped.

Suddenly, Emily, and a girl I recognized as Sakura ran through. Ozzie was on her shoulder.

"Adriane!" Emily called, then screached to a halt as she saw me.

"Ozzie!" Adriane was a lot more enthusiastic about seeing Ozzie then she had been about seeing me. Of course, Sakura was a little freaked out.

"What did you do to Syaoran!?" She yelled. Adriane repeated her story. It took a couple of soothing words from Emily to calm her down.

"It's good to see you again, Kara," Emily said, her smile a lot more genuine then Adriane's. "Lets head back to camp. That is, if you don't mind the giant bat."

"Ew!!" I screamed.

"Either that or you starve, Barbie," Adriane rolled her eyes. I wanted to yell at her, but I didn't. "Fine, just keep it away from me." I growled.

"I bet HE will hate you, too." Adriane said, emphasizing the word "he" so I didn't call it an it again.

"Whatever," I muttered as I rolled my eyes. As we walked back into the forest, I approached Sakura. "Your friend is hot," I said casually, glancing at Syaoran, who Stormbringer was carrying. Sakura's gaze darkened slightly.

"Back off. He's mine," She growled before walking ahead of me and disappearing into the trees.

-----

POV: Kiba

I groaned loudly and curled my wolf form into a ball. Blood stained my fur. Scratches from those green, bladed creatures covered my body. Breathing was difficult. What the heck were they...? I had slipped in and out of unconciousness for a while, since, I believe, the day of the fire, but I didn't know how much time had passed.

A weird scent filled my nose. I growled quietly, but it came out as a wimper. I decided to shut up before I looked like a wimp. I heard a small amount of what sounded like hooves in the sand, and whatever I could scent halted in front of me. It's voice filled my head, but I didn't hear it out loud.

_You're an interesting Earth creature,_ It said.

"What the heck? Who are you?" I growled back. I opened my eyes and recognized the blue deer, with extra eyes instead of antlers, human arms, and a dangerous looking tail.

_Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill. Or just Ax,_ The voice said. Weird name. _You look beaten up. What happened here?_

"Ambushed by two green freaks of nature..." I growled. Ax's eyes narrowed.

_Cassie and Rachel. That's weird..._ He muttered.

I put up my human form, wondering if that would help me gather energy to get to my feet. It didn't. The creature, weirdly enough, walked over to me and held out its hand. It helped me stand up. "Do you need something from me?" I grunted, guessing that might've been why it had helped me at all.

_I want you to follow the trail of those hork-bajir,_ Ax said. My eyebrow raised. _The green 'freaks of nature,' so to speak,_ Ax clarified. I didn't know if I could do this, as I didn't know how long I had been out. If it had been too long ago, the scent might've disappeared.

"When was the fire?" I asked.

_Two days ago,_ Ax said. I nodded. "I can try to help you locate your friends," I said. I more or less wanted to tear one of their arms off, but I didn't say this. I turned into a wolf and picked up the weird scent easily. It was still clear, though stale. I traveled as fast as I could, and Ax put up with my slow speed quite well. I stopped in the middle of the clearing.

_What's wrong?_ Ax asked.

"One of the trails ends here," I said. "The second one is not too far away, in that cave over there." I pointed my muzzle to a nearby cave. "You go without me. I don't need to be attacked again." I limped off and finally stopped by a river, where I allowed darkness to take me over.

-----

POV: Husky

I stared at the sky. I had been laying here since the fire had ended, spearing fish being the only times I got up. I was more or less waiting for Senri, not really sure if he would come back. He was probably too busy putting flowers into his book. I glanced at my +Anima marking. My +Anima abilities had saved my life on occasions. MANY occasions. I allowed my feet to turn into a fish tail.

"The little mermaid turned into a boy..." I hissed, infuriated. I swore at the man. I was even slightly angry at Senri for restraining me. Suddenly, I heard a rustling in the bushes. "Senri?" I asked.

"Husky," I heard his voice say. I sighed in relief, but then I noticed he was covered in scratches.

"What happened?" I asked, angry at his attacker. He pointed at the sky. I noticed two figures. "Birds?" I asked. Then I noticed these were not birds. They were the bird kids, Max and Fang, was it? I didn't care. I whipped out my staff. I didn't need to hurt them. Only break their collars to make them go away. I leapt into the water so I could catch them by surprise. They landed in front of Senri. "Stop running, bear boy," Max growled. Senri said nothing, only turned his arm into a bear claw. "You-" she said a rude word. Here's a hint: it rhymes with 'eeking.' "Idiot. You know you can't win." I narrowed my eyes angrily from the water, my tail moving silently to keep me afloat. I leapt out of the water, doing a forward flip, and smashing my staff against Fang's collar. A hole broke into it, the mist surrounded Fang, and he disappeared. His collar dropped into the water, and was taken away by the waves.

_Subject 01536 defeated._

Max screached in rage. She lashed out and kicked me in the ribs, her hand hitting me square in the nose. I heard one of my ribs snap. My nose technically caved in. I let out a cry of pain and fell to the floor. This made Senri really angry. "Husky..." He growled furiously, upset that I'd been injured. You did not want to make Senri upset. He tore his claws across Max's face, grabbed her wings, and pulled. She let out a cry of pain, swung around, tearing deep scars into her wings, and kicked Senri in the collar. The collar snapped, and the mist surrounded him. "Senri!" I yelled. He disappeared, his collar dropping to the floor, laying their, motionless.

_Subject 20968 defeated._

I called Max something I probably shouldn't have and glared furiously at her. Our furious gazes held for about 10 seconds before she crumpled to the ground. Her wings must've been connected to her back, and if that was the case, her back had taken some serious damage. I curled into a ball, one hand protectively covering my broken rib, the other over my nose, which was bleeding.

"Truce." I coughed out, more because if I blacked out, I didn't want to be defeated in my sleep then actual peace between us, because by now, I HATED her.

"Truce," She whispered, barely audible. I blacked out.


	6. Chapter 6

_Day Five_

POV: Saphira

I woke on the beach where I had peacefully slept the day before. It was my first peaceful sleep on the island. The alliance I had made with Firedrake had really been welcome. It allowed me to sleep better, knowing I had some protection. And, face it, Firedrake can't really sneak up on anyone. He's not that quiet.

Anyway, I woke up and let a puff of smoke escape through my mouth and into the air, to let him know I was awake. As he made his way to me, I noticed something: He was missing a few scales. Blood ran down his sides. My eyes narrowed.

"What happened?" I asked.

"I was attacked at the hunting ground." Firedrake said vaguely. "It's no big deal."

"It's a very big deal. Why were you attacked?" I insisted.

"I believe I might have accidently injured someone," He admitted. "My wing grazed a girls face."

I sighed and shook my head. "Well...we might want to try ending on good terms with these people. I'm not sure it will help if they're angry at us." I was thinking about how some of the humans had gone and defeated others. Though I wasn't sure of the reason, attacking them was probably one of them.

Firedrake grinned. "I was thinking more along the lines of kicking their-" He let out a puff of smoke as a censor. "but I like your idea better." He finished, laughing. I laughed with him. "OK." I said after a moment. "Let's go." My wings snapped open, and I took off.

-----

POV: Stormbringer

I sat next to Adriane, grooming my ruffled fur, as Emily healed some of Adriane's wounds. That dragon got on my nerves. Who did he think he was, striking Emily like that? Of course, Emily said it was nothing, and thanked us for coming to her defense, then went on to using her magic to heal our wounds. By us, I mean Kara, Adriane, Dreamer, Syaoran and I. Sakura, Ozzie, and Ares had refused to work with Kara, and I knew Adriane would have, too, if Emily hadn't agreed to come, too. Syaoran had woken up and Emily had healed his back wound. I was still confused as to why Syaoran wanted to be knocked out in the first place, or this "promise" thing Kara claimed she had heard them bring up on the beach, but there was nothing I could do about it now.

"There," Emily said, pulling back. The dragon scratches on Adriane's arms were gone.

"Thanks, Emily," Adriane said, grinning. I nudged her foot, and she ran her hand over my head. I smiled and barked, wagging my tail. Adriane laughed.

Suddenly, my ears pricked. Footsteps. Syaoran screached to a halt at the front of the cave, kicking up a lot of dust.

"Sorry," He said. Emily coughed, and Kara, who surprisingly hadn't said much until now, started snapping at Syaoran about how he could've ruined her shirt. Adriane rolled her eyes.

"Don't worry about it. You look like you have something to say," I put in, interuppting Kara's rant. Syaoran nodded.

"There's someone waiting for you outside of camp," He said.

"Who?" I asked, cocking my head. He winced. He obviously couldn't SEE who it was, and he probably hadn't asked. "Someone...big?" He cringed and tensed, probably because he knew it sounded rather lame.

"Knowing you, that could be anything from a dragon to an amoboe," Adriane commented. I rammed my head lightly into her ribs.

"Anyway, I think it might've been what we fought earlier," Syaoran said, his fists clenched furiously. Commenting on his blindness irked him, and Adriane knew it. I couldn't understand why she kept doing it, then. Emily stood up.

"The dragon?" Emily asked.

"We were fighting a dragon?" Syaoran asked incredulously. He brought his hand to his forehead. "Why don't I hear these things anymore?" He sighed.

"It's kind of hard to tell you this kind of thing every ten minutes," Adriane said.

"Shut up!" Syaoran yelled. He sounded kind of upset. I understood. If everyone kept reminding me I was a dog, or anything like that, I would be upset, too.

"Best not leave the dragon waiting," Emily said, interuppting.

"There's two." Syaoran growled. "The one we attacked earlier, and Saphira, if you remember her, Adriane." Adriane knew what he was talking about, even if I didn't. She jumped to her feet and ran from the cave. We all silently followed, while Syaoran had to technically persuade Kara into leaving the cave. I was sure she didn't care about confronting the dragons at all, she just wanted Syaoran to talk to her. As they left, she held his hand, which he obviously hated, because his free hand was clenched into a fist. Sakura, who had heard the commotion and had come to join us, was quite clear on how much she hated it, too.

"Kara..." She warned. Kara just shot her a smug grin. Syaoran was obviously resisting the urge to punch anyone, mainly Kara. We stopped in front of the dragons. The blood was glistening on the male dragon's scales.

"What do you want?" I asked, keeping my voice neutral.

"We wanted to apologize." The female dragon Syaoran had called Saphira said. I cocked my head.

"I'm Firedrake, by the way," The male dragon said. "And I didn't mean to hurt your friend."

"Emily," Emily said. "It's OK. Thanks for apologizing."

"We're having a formal conversation with a dragon!? Does anyone else realize this???" Kara nearly shreiked.

"Yes, we've gotten used to it, now shut up," Syaoran hissed at her.

"I'll heal you, if you'd like," Emily offered. It was a good idea on Emily's behalf. Firedrake nodded, and Emily brought her stone to his scales.

That's when a loud roar pierced the air, and a different dragon burst through the trees, eyes filled with the intent to kill.

-----

POV: Syaoran

I let go of Kara's hand, glad for an excuse to do so. "She's angry," Sakura whispered into my ear.

"I can tell," I admitted. The dragon was technically hyperventilating, so it obviously wasn't cheerful.

"Velika," Firedrake greeted warily. "Where's Shardas?"

This obviously hadn't been the right thing to say. She roared in pure rage and by the sound, she had probably brought her claws down on Firedrake.

"I think Shardas was one of the two defeated the other day," I said cautiously. Sakura nodded. Flames suddenly exploded at my feet, seperating me and Sakura. I swore loudly, something about hating being blind, and remembered I had left my sword in a cave. More flames exploded to my right.

"Ares!" Sakura yelled. "Ozzie!!!" Emily cried. I knew the cave Ares and Ozzie had been sleeping in had been set on fire. Someone rushed by me, and when she was followed by two wolves, I knew it was Adriane. Everyone confronting the furious Velika was dodging balls of flame, and Emily hadn't needed to say much to Saphira and Firedrake to convince them to leave. Suddenly, something sounded off...

_Subject 62094 defeated._

_Subject 42682 defeated._

Adriane ran from the cave, and I heard something making a low clicking sound from her hand, along with the paws of Dreamer and Storm following her.

"I'm so sorry...!" She cried. "They asked me...they didn't want to die..." I knew exactly what she meant. She had broken Ozzie's and Ares's collars. The clicking came from what was likely the collars she was holding. "It's OK!" Emily called, breathing heavily from the exhaustion from the dodging, or smoke fumes. Or possibly both.

"Here!" Adriane yelled. Something nearly nailed me on the head, but instictively, my hand shot up and caught it. It was my sword.

"Warn me next time, you could've cut my head open!" I yelled at her. "Kara might've had a coniption," Adriane sniggered, then I heard the familiar sounds of the magic cracking around her wrist. I tried to pinpoint Velika's location, which wasn't hard because she was making so much racket, the entire island probably knew something was up. I charged and sunk the sword into the skin between the scales, purely by chance. I felt magic lash below my feet, and I leapt off, dragging the sword across her back. Velika roared and her wings snapped out, smashing me into a nearby tree. I stood up shakily, but I felt myself being pinned to the ground.

"Why am I always the one being pinned to the floor by animals too stupid to think straight!?" I yelled, which was a bad idea on my behalf. By stupid, I was obviously refferring to the rat. I'd think that Velika, if she weren't so angry, would realize that. But, of course, she was angry. So she didn't. Her claw ripped across my right eye and I cried out, loud, in pain. Her teeth shot towards my neck, either aiming to kill me or destroy my collar, when she was forced off of me. Magic was whipping all around the area.

"Adriane...?" I asked. It didn't seem like her magic at all.

"Adriane's gone!" I heard Sakura call from somewhere further away.

"Then what the he-" I was cut off when someone pushed me to my feet.

"Get out of here," Said the person. I recognized the voice instantly and I nearly choked on air in surprise.

"Clone Syaoran!? What are you DOING here!?" I yelped in shock. I gagged as some blood ran down my face and into my mouth.

"Saving your life," He snapped. Magic flailed everywhere, and Velika roared, slicing her claws at us. I dodged to the right, while the clone dodged in the opposite direction, the left, obviously.

"Why the heck are you saving my life!? Earth to my clone: WE HATE EACH OTHER!" I hissed.

"Don't even remind me," He snapped. More magic flew everywhere. Pain shot through me, and not just from the wound in my eye. The magic he was using had once belonged to Fai. I shoved the thought away.

"Run!" The clone repeated, shoving me sideways. I staggered for the bushes, avoiding flames as I ran. I turned back one more time to 'observe' the scene. If only I could've seen. If I hadn't been blind. Maybe I would've noticed the look on the clone's face. Maybe I wouldn't have overlooked the fact that he had come up with an idea. A dangerous one. Maybe, if I hadn't listened to him and had taken on Velika myself, maybe even just allowed myself to be defeated, the whole event two years later never would've happened...

But I couldn't see. And I couldn't have known. So I made a run for it. I caught up to Sakura and we fled.

-----

POV: Drake

At the sound of the commotion, I flew in circles over island. _Momma...? _I called every now and then. Adriane. Was she OK? I was worried. Since Zach, the person I usually hung out with, wasn't here, I had been searching for her since we had split up due to the fire.

Fire. I sniffed the air. Definately fire. I caught sight of the smoke. _Momma?_ I asked one more time, hoping Adriane might respond. When I didn't hear anything, I gave up and dived down into the flames. I flapped my wings to make a passage way. Magic suddenly blasted in all directions, and I caught sight of fighting. A dragon, and...the kid being sat on by the rat the first day. I couldn't tell who was winning. Magic flew from the kids right eye and and slammed into the other dragon. I stood in the back, wondering if he was a dragon slayer. The blue dragon lept up and snapped at his collar. He dived out of the way and leapt onto her back. He sent a sharp jet of magic at her collar. The roar was deafening. The collar snapped and fell to the floor as the red mist swallowed up the dragon.

_Subject 59293 defeated._

I took a shy step forward, a little bit frightened. The boy turned around.

"Drake," He said. My eyes narrowed.

_I thought you were blind...?_ I questioned. His eyes narrowed. _You aren't a dragon hunter, are you? _I asked frantically, backing off. The boy stared at my claws. I cocked my head and started self conciously rubbing the dirt, mud, and sand from between my claws and off the front of the back of it with my other claw. He took a step towards me.

_DON'T HURT ME!!! I_ squeaked fearfully. The boy shook his head. "I'm not blind," He said, finally answering my question. "I'm just the clone." I remembered the clone from the island shore.

_You're good at magic,_ I said cheerfully. I noticed that his eyes were on my claws again. _Is something wrong with my claws? _I asked, slightly freaked out by his dry gaze. He shook his head.

"I need to ask you a favor," He said after a small amount of hesitation. "I need you to create a deep slash in my right eye." The request startled me.

_What for...?_ I asked. He shook his head, refusing to answer my question. _OK, then..._ I said after he didn't respond. _How deep into your eye?_ This was the weirdest thing anyone had ever asked me to do for them. He held up his fingers to give me a length. My eyes narrowed.

_That's going to hurt... _I warned.

"I don't care," The clone said. I wondered if he had feelings or nerve ending at all. I nodded and decided not to hesitate any longer. What's weird is I was probably more afraid of this then he was. His gaze was fixed on an opening in the now slightly scorched trees. I closed my eyes fearfully and slashed my claws across his right, blue eye. He didn't even cry out in pain as the blood pored down his face. He opened his eye and I tried not to look completely disgusted at the deep slash down the center of his eye. Suddenly, magic jumped from it, although it was slightly ragged, and swirled around me for a moment before he gave a nod of satisfaction.

"I have no more use of you," He said. Before I could even react, the magic sliced up my collar. I let out a surprised yelp but fell limp as the mist surrounded me...

_Subject 19861 defeated_

-----

POV: Husky

I woke up, feeling very sore. My hand was still over my broken rib, but I noticed that my other hand wasn't grabbing my nose, instead, it was holding something. I managed to lift my head. It was Senri's book. He must've dropped it. I frowned.

"I guess there aren't any flowers in the lab he's going to," I sighed. I staggered to my feet, only to fall over again. I knew what I had to do. I couldn't stay here. I had declared a truce with Max, but if she felt better when she woke up, she might drop the peace. And I didn't think it would be right to unclip her collar while she was unconcious. So, I figured I should run. If that was possible. After I tried a few more times, I figured out that it was not. So, instead, I turned and made my way over to the water. As I walked, I dropped Senri's book by Max. I couldn't take it with me. Unable to leap in as I do sometimes, I simply slowly limped into the waves and as soon as it was deep enough, allowed my feet to turn into a fish tail. I heard Max wake up from behind me. She watched as I slowly made my way to the deeper waters. Swimming didn't help my rib at all, but it was easier then running. I noticed that she mouthed something as I dived under.

"Thank you."

It was weird, but I understood why, so I gave a quick nod and swam off. I swum rather cluelessly around until I found an opening that led to a river or lake of a sort in the half destroyed forest. I followed the route until I figured I needed to rest. I pulled myself out of the water and was about to lay down when I noticed a wolf asleep on the other side. I cautiously lowered my head and wondered whether to leave when I realized it was scratched up, badly. Unsure of what to do, I crossed the river, pulled myself up onto the opposite bank, and leaned over it. It lifted it's head.

"What are you doing here, girl?" The wolf barked. I clenched my fists angrily.

"What did you just call me!?" I snarled, then grabbed my rib, wincing.

"Sorry, are you a guy?" The wolf sounded surprised.

"Shut up or I won't even think about trying to help you," I said simply. I didn't know much about healing scratches, but I did remember some type of plant Senri had learned to use at one point or another. The memory was fuzzy, but I still remembered what the plant looked like. Lucky for me, it grew near rivers. I quickly identified it, picked it, and lowered my hand holding the plant to the wolf's muzzle. "You chew this," I said.

"Why can't you chew it?" He asked. I wondered if he even noticed my nose was broken. Of course, this wasn't the real reason I didn't want to chew the herb to a pulp. It was because it tasted horrible and more importantly, I doubted the wolf wanted my spit in its fur. But I just used my broken nose as an excuse and we moved on with it. The wolf spat out the stuff into my hand and I rubbed it onto the scratches. The wolf slowly let its eyelids drop. "Does that help?" I asked. The wolf nodded. I crossed to the other side of the river and fell asleep, somehow doubting that the wolf was going anywhere.

----

POV: Sakura

Syaoran and I were running for hours before we had finally decided to stop in a clearing. Not that I would ever say that to him. When we both stopped, Syaoran started setting up some type of camp and I looked at the sun, trying to guess what time it was. We had started running at about two, and it appeared to be about five. No wonder we were so exhausted. How big was this island, anyway? I never really figured it out.

Syaoran tapped my shoulder, pulling me from my thoughts. "It seems like this was another part of the island untouched by the fire...the bark on the surrounding trees aren't burnt," He said. I nodded. He was right. It wasn't even slightly scorched over here. The only fire there was the one Syaoran had started while I had zoned out. "I'm going to go hunting," Syaoran said. I stared into his left eye, which was glazed over, as usual. His right eye, which Velika had technically cut open, was squinted shut. It was still bleeding. I narrowed my eyes.

"Is that a good idea?" I asked.

"I know my right eye is injured. It'll be fine. And just because I'm blind doesn't mean-" Syaoran snapped.

"No, that's not it...I just..." My voice faltered. Those were exactly the reasons I didn't want him out hunting. But I couldn't bring myself to say it.

"Just...be back before nightfall or I'll be out looking for you," I said. He didn't like it when I went looking for him, mainly because he was worried I would get hurt. Syaoran nodded and walked off through the trees. As I caught my breath from the run, I slowly remembered Kurogane and Fai and burst into tears. I just sat there, curled into a ball, leaning against a tree, sobbing, for I don't know how long, but at some point, I fell asleep.

I shot awake sometime later. I looked up. The sun was gone, replaced by glittering stars and the shining moon.

"Syaoran?" I called out. When he didn't answer, I panicked. I had warned him if he didn't come back or had gotten lost, I would go to look for him, even if he didn't want me to. I raced into the trees only to feel someone grab my shoulder. I swung around.

"Syaoran!" I said, feeling relieved. I hugged him, and he looked a little embarrassed. He seemed a little stiff. He was holding a rabbit in his left hand. I took a step back and looked up at his right eye.

"Did you bump your eye against something while you were out there?" I asked, concerned. It was bleeding harder then when I had last seen it.

"I knocked my head against a tree branch. It's not a big deal," He muttered. He sounded exhausted. I put my hand on his forehead. I couldn't feel a bump or anything of the like.

"I'm fine, Sakura," He said with a sigh. He walked over to the fire and started cooking the rabbit, and doing whatever else you had to do to make it edible. I never watched this. When Adriane had tried to teach me, I had nearly thrown up, remembered that Fai had been eaten alive, then burst into tears. When he was done, he handed it to me.

"Are you going to have any?" I asked. He shook his head.

"Not hungry," He grunted simply. I opened my mouth to object, but the look in his eye kind of told me not to, so I ate the rabbit without looking at it. I glanced at Syaoran. His eyes were looking at the sky. He seemed kind of distant.

"Do you miss Kurogane and Fai...?" I asked, simply because I was wondering what he was thinking about. He looked at me.

"Huh?" He asked.

"Um...do you miss Kurogane and Fai," I repeated. He sighed.

"What do you think?" He asked. The question kind of startled me.

"Um..." I said, wondering whether or not there was a right answer. I sighed. "Never mind." I stood up. "I'm going to go to sleep." I started to walk towards the tree. Before I knew it, I was on the ground. I blinked, stood up, and shook my head, figuring I had just tripped over. I turned back, almost hoping Syaoran hadn't noticed. But he was staring right at me, and he was on his feet. My face flushed red.

"Sorry," I muttered.

"What are you sorry for?" He asked. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could say anything, Syaoran ran towards me. To my surprise, his kicked me right in the stomach. I let out a yelp and coughed painfully, grabbing my stomach.

"What was that for!?" I half complained, half squeaked, but Syaoran completely ignored me. He grabbed my shoulders, and knocked me into a tree.

"Syaoran!!" I screamed, wanting to push him, but not having the courage to do so. What the heck was he THINKING!? He swung around, and his foot made contact with my temple. I wimpered, and fell to the floor, unconcious.


	7. Chapter 7

_Day Six_

POV: Max

I was unable to move. I hadn't moved from the spot since Husky left. I still held the book in my hands. Why the heck had he given me a book...? I didn't need it for anything. I'd flipped through it three times. It only contained flowers. I wondered why he even had it with him. I attempted to get to my feet and nearly screamed at the pain it caused my back. I growled furiously at the bear boy under my breath for ripping so hard at my wings.

I kept my back in the same position and staggered to my feet. I was hunched over, but it worked. I slowly attempted to straighten out my wings, but ultimately failed. I decided to enter the forest, where I wasn't out injured in the open. I walked through the trees, using them to support myself as I walked. I stayed clear of rivers, since I didn't know where the fish...girl? boy? was. As I began to sit down, a voice rung out.

"What are you doing here?" It was a small voice, like that of a young kid. I looked to see a small wolf at my feet. "You're hurt," It said. My eyes narrowed. The younger, talking mistwolf from the first day on the island. I nodded.

"Yah," I said lamely.

"One second," The wolf said. It then disappeared. I looked at my wings, and attempted to fold them back, but instead let out a cry of pain. I swore at the bear boy one more time before letting my eyes fall closed. But before I could, I heard someone coming towards me. It was a girl with red hair. A pretty stone glowed on her wrist.

"Dreamer told me you would be here," She said. "I'm Emily." She stared at my wings. I felt a little self concious, but was determined not to let it show. She put her crystal up to my wings and closed her eyes. I didn't question what she was doing. She looked like she was concentrating on something...

Suddenly, the pain in my wings began to fade. I glanced at them and was surprised to see the deep scratches disappearing. I didn't say anything until her eyes opened.

"How did you...!?" I breathed in surprise as I slowly moved them back and forth. They no longer hurt at all. Emily smiled. I got to my feet. Though my back still had a cut on it, it wasn't near as bad as the wounds on my wings.

"You want to stay in camp with us for a little while?" Emily asked. I smiled.

"You're pretty brave. You do know that this is a competition only one person can win, right?" I asked. She nodded.

"I just have a feeling that you wouldn't feel right about defeating my friends, or me," She admitted. My eyes narrowed. "It's just kind of the aura I see in you. I'm sorry if it sounds like a load of cr-"

"No, it doesn't, it's exactly what I was thinking," I said suspiciously. She laughed and signalled me to follow.

-----

POV: Firedrake

I flew around the area, looking for something for Saphira to eat. I lived on moonlight, but Saphira ate a whole lot, so I needed to stay out a while to find food for her. But that wasn't the whole truth, of course. I'd told myself that if the competition wasn't over by day six, I would start defeating some of the players, because on day seven, that's when the assassins start to appear. And I didn't want myself, or anyone else, dying. As I circled the skys, I saw a lot: A small patch of trees at the very top of the island, the only completely untouched piece of land, a bunch of scattered rivers, even a collar or two. But my eyes finally settled on a river where two figures slept calmly. I couldn't tell who they were from up in the air, so I circled downwards silently for a closer look.

When I landed, I saw a wolf and a boy. Or was it a girl? I couldn't tell. They were both injured, it was pretty clear, though I couldn't see what was wrong with the kid. I figured it wouldn't matter if I snapped on of their collars. Or both of them. I would do what I had to to live through this. I bent over the wolf, but before I could sink my teeth into it's collar, a staff flew up my nose.

"Oops," The kid said sarcastically. I grunted, and the staff flew into the river. The kid washed the staff clean quickly before looking up. I noticed that he had his hand on his lowest rib, which looked snapped out of place.

"What are you doing?" He (or she...) asked. I also noticed his nose was smashed.

"Nothing important," I snapped.

"Break the wolf's collar and you'll be sorry," The kid said.

"Cause I'm scared of a little girl," I guessed vaguely. He clenched his teeth. "I'm not a girl," He hissed. I ignored him and clamped my teeth into the wolf's collar. I kept my teeth there as the mist floated around the wolf. It disappeared, leaving the collar dangling in my mouth.

_Subject 20687 defeated._

The boy's eyes narrowed and he leapt at me. I dodged easily and held out my wings, flapping at him, the wind sending him into the water. I ducked my head into the water, pinning him to the floor, hoping to knock out the boy. I noticed, far too late, that his feet had been replaced by a fish tail. He stabbed at my collar, more powerfully then he looked, with his staff. A hole broke into the collar, and the mist seeped out. It surrounded me, making it harder for me to breathe...

_Subject 42682 defeated._

-----

POV: Sakura

I woke up, very dizzy. I put my hand on my temple, then I remembered Syaoran. Syaoran. What the heck was he doing, attacking me like that!? I stood up. I needed to talk to him. To knock me out...it just wasn't like him. It didn't take long to find Syaoran. He was sleeping by a tree right next to a pond. I grabbed his shoulders and lightly shook him back and forth.

"Syaoran...?" I whispered quietly. His left eye opened slightly. He still looked exhausted.

"Sakura," He said, and smiled. He. Smiled. I wanted to yell at him.

"I want an explanation," I said, allowing my emotions to come into my voice.

"Explain what?" Syaoran cocked his head, looking confused.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about!! You tripped me over and kicked me in the temple yesterday! And you know it!!" The look of surprise on Syaoran's face was undeniable.

"I didn't--" He began.

"Don't say you didn't!!!" I yelled. We fell silent for a second.

"I don't remember anything like that. You said you were going to sleep, tripped over on your way over there...and that's about it." I stared in complete surprise. He didn't _remember??? _That just didn't add up. Syaoran's gaze fell to the floor. "

"I'll go hunt," He said.

"It took you hours to get back last time." I snapped, not really concerned on hurting his feelings anymore.

"No, it didn't," He said, sounding rather annoyed this time. "You were asleep when I got back."

I grabbed my head, completely confused. "You can go hunting," I sighed. As he turned to walk away, I looked up for a moment. I held four fingers in front of me.

"Syaoran?" I called. He turned around. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

He just stared at me. "I'm blind, remember?" He growled, then he swung around and walked off into the trees.

As I put my head in my hands, I glanced towards the river. I turned around and picked up a stone, lightly throwing it into the river. It skipped three times before sinking to the bottom. I lightly picked up another stone and threw that, too.

Suddenly, I felt pressure on my back. The land under my feet disappeared, and I fell into the water. I tried to pull up, but something was keeping me from the surface. I screamed and inhaled water. I couldn't breathe. I grunted and tried to get up, but something about the water wouldn't let me up. As I closed my eyes, I noticed Syaoran standing over the water, watching me...watching?

-----

POV: Ax

I hadn't really moved since I found Rachel. Rachel hadn't gone anywhere, either. We didn't want to leave the spot of Cassie's death. Well, it seemed close enough to death, anyway. We hadn't moved her collar anywhere, it just didn't seem like the right thing to do. Rachel hadn't eaten anything, which upset me more then anything. Seeing as I ate grass, it wasn't that hard for me. But Rachel...

_I think that you should eat something,_ I said to her after a long while. She shook her head.

"Can't get motivated to go hunting," She admitted. I stood up, stretching my feet and tail as I did so.

_Then I'll go hunting for you,_ I decided. She shook her head.

"No, Ax-"

_Rachel, it's OK,_ I said, and I left the cave before she could object. I looked around the island, wondering if it would be possible to find anything. I decided to get a drink before I went hunting. After all, the beach shore wasn't far away. I carefully made my way out of the trees, which were growing back unusually fast.

As I made my way to the shore, I realized the sky was slowly darkening. Even though night was falling, it was an unnatural darkness. I remembered the assassins. Maybe that had something to do with it. But then again, what did I know about human weather? I stopped by the ocean shore and dipped my hoof in.

Suddenly, something skimmed past my side. I swung around. It was one of the rats.

"What are you doing here!?" He snarled.

_Since when do rats talk?_ I asked curiously. Rachel and Cassie weren't the only one's who could morph. I had morphed into a rat before. They couldn't talk.

"Since when do blue cross mutant freaks live on Earth?" The rat snapped.

_...Touche,_ I said, unable to think of anything else to add. _I'm only getting a drink. I'll be leaving soon._ The rat snarled.

"You shouldn't be here at all, freak," He snarled.

_Ax,_ I corrected. _And you don't own this ocean, rat._

"Ripred," The rat said before launching at me. I remembered what the man had mentioned about the rat being a rager, born with the ability to fight. And he wasn't kidding. The rat could fight. It's tail and it's claws flew at me before I knew what was going on. I galloped to the side slightly before making a sharp turn and narrowly dodging a blow to the collar. My tail whipped up and slashed the rat across the side, opening up a gaping wound. The rat dug it's teeth furiously into my collar before I even noticed it had moved. It's blood splattered on my fur as the red mist seeped out of the collar. I then noticed something from the corner of my eyes.

_AX!!_ It was Rachel. A wolf leapt from the bushes and sunk its teeth into Ripred's collar. I heard someone call Rachel a bad name before leaping out of the bushes. Another rat. It leapt at Rachel, but she sidestepped and made a break for it into the trees. The mist then clouded my vision.

_Subject 02684 defeated._

_Subject 26782 defeated._

-----

POV: Sakura

I woke up to someone shaking me back and forth by the shoulders. My eyes slowly opened. I let out a low moan and coughed out some water.

"Sakura?" Syaoran asked, probably not sure if I was awake or just moaning and coughing in my unconcious state.

"Syaoran," I said quietly. I looked up at the sky. It was very late. Nearly midnight, I assumed. I looked at Syaoran. He seemed worried.

"I was worried you wouldn't wake up," The concern in his voice was quite clear. My eyes narrowed as I remembered him "watching" me as I fell into the water. He couldn't have seen a thing, though...he was blind...My thoughts raced, and I felt myself getting surprisingly angry at Syaoran. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed I hadn't fallen into the water, but I had been pushed...

"Syaoran?" I asked, feeling myself get a little upset.

"Yes?" He asked.

"How did you know I had fallen into the water?" I asked.

"You weren't that quiet falling in, thankfully," He admitted. I clenched my fists.

"You didn't happen to push me in, did you?" I yelled, suddenly furious. Syaoran's un-injured eye widened.

"What, so you think I was trying to drown you!?" He yelled, looking as furious as well.

"The more I think about it, the more likely it seems!"

"How so!?"

"Well, you knocked me unconcious yesterday, I wouldn't be surprised if you wanted me dead!" I said this before I had even thought about it. Syaoran fell completely silent. I knew instantly I shouldn't have said that.

"I'm sorry..." I said, but I knew inside that I really didn't mean it. And that just made me feel worse. Syaoran had closed his eye. We sat there silently for a long time.

"I would never hurt you, Sakura," He said quietly. I was about to respond when a small *beep* rung from my collar and I pressed a button.

"Due to some rule breaking, Bass has been killed. Gadzooks has been disqualified. The assassins have been released on the island. They will not hesitate to kill you. Watch your backs from now on. You never know when one might find you." I shuddered. Syaoran put his hand on my shoulder, and for once, it did nothing to comfort me. "A sign that someone has been killed will be three scratches on a tree. They will usually be covered in poison, or blood. Dead members will not go to Makai. Sleep tight, everyone." The collar clicked off.

"Makai...?" I asked, not sure what the heck Makai was.

"I'd assume that's the name of the lab," Syaoran said, taking silent steps towards a place where the trees cleared, giving a clear view of the stars. He seemed worried. Something told me it had nothing to do with the assassins. I walked over to a place where the trees disappeared, as far away from him as possible. As I watched, I noticed something fairly weird. One of the stars glowed brightly. Then another. This happened for a little while until about 20 stars were glowing. Then, slowly, they faded. I watched, sure it was just a trick of the light. Maybe even a warning of coming danger. As weird as it sounded, I knew nothing about this dimension. So who knew? I looked at Syaoran.

"I'm scared," I said, a little louder then I intended. Syaoran stood up and walked over to me. Then, though it seemed a little hesitant, he gave me a hug. "I'll protect you. No matter what," He said. I bit my lip. As I stared into the trees, I missed Kurogane and Fai. I didn't trust Syaoran any more. And I felt lonelier then ever.


	8. Chapter 8

_Day Seven_

POV: Dreamer

I wagged my tail and nudged Adriane awake. Worry shone in her eyes as she looked around. I knew she was worried about the assassins. "Please, don't worry. I'll protect you," I declared bravely. Adriane put her hand on my head, ruffling my fur.

"Don't get defeated for me," She said.

"You're going to win. I'll be sure of it. Even if I have to remove my collar at the end," I said.

"I won't let you," Adriane said before standing up. "You, Storm, and I can get something to eat for Barbie, Max, and Emily," She said.

"Right!" I barked.

"You called?" Storm materialized beside me. Adriane nodded.

"Let's go."

We walked through the forest silently. I stalked a bird that I saw, and I heard Storm comment to Adriane that I looked like a cat. I wimpered. I really wanted to impress them by catching something good. Instead, I got criticism. Why couldn't I do anything right?? I stopped stalking the bird and let it go. I sat down and thought of something else. If I could catch a deer, instead of Adriane catching it...

I ran ahead of the two, sniffing the air with every pawstep. Suddenly, two things happened at once. The first was a sound went off:

_Subject 29458 defeated._

It seemed completely irrelevant compaired to the second thing...

I caught a foreign scent. I had never smelt it before. I narrowed my eyes curiously, took a deep sniff, then padded back to Adriane.

"Can't find anything?" She asked. I shook my head. "I scent something weird," I admitted. Storm took a step forward and scented the air.

"Assassin!" She said in a sharp whisper. Adriane's eyes widened in concern.

"We can't let it get near camp, so we'll have to fight it. Good going, Storm." I held back a bark of frustration. I was the one who had scented it! Why did STORM get the credit? I stamped my paw, but Adriane ignored me. Storm's fur bristled. I sighed deeply and turned to face the scent. Without a second thought, I darted straight towards it.

"Dreamer!" Storm barked at me. I ignored her. I could tell that the assassin was trying to sneak up on us, and I wouldn't let him. I leapt at him, teeth bared. The man swung around, startled, but the look remained in his eyes for a very short time as he swung around and slashed the long sword-claw type weapons at my side. I dug my teeth into his shoulder but let go and gave a small howl of pain. The cuts weren't deep, but they stung...

Storm and Adriane charged at the man and started to attack. Adriane let out long whips of magic. Storm faded into mist. I wanted to yell at myself. I should have done that instead of leaping in head first...

_No wonder Adriane likes Storm better,_ I thought bitterly. _Because I'm dumber then a carrot. _I got to my feet. "Dreamer, go!" Adriane ordered. "We don't need you to get injured any more." I bit back an angry yelp. "No!" I rebelled, leaping at the man again. He swung around and slashed the claws at my muzzle. I grabbed down on the claws and held on tight, slashing my back claws at the man's shoulder. I let go before the edges managed to hurt or permanently damage my gums. I flipped through the air and landed directly on my four paws.

I shot a reluctant glance at Adriane. She was glaring at me. I pretended not to notice. The assassin chose to ignore us now and started to fight Adriane. Magic flew in all directions as the man shot constant blows as her. Storm and I tried to break in, but the man swung around and either kicked us or swung his claws at us, sending us backwards to refrain from any injuries. Ten minutes passed. Twenty. After about thirty minutes of battle, it was clear Adriane couldn't handle this for much longer. She collapsed against a tree, breathing heavily, her energy drained from the overuse of magic. The assassin smiled and charged, his artificial claws aiming straight for her heart...

"No!!" I barked. I sped past Storm, who had run to try and help, and leapt in front of Adriane as the claws sliced down. I let out a loud howl and crashed to the floor. Storm nailed the man down and delivered a killing bite to his throat. The 'claws' had nailed me just below the collar, down my chest, and ended at my front paws. Blood stained the ground. I let out a wimper and curled into a tight ball.

"That was so stupid of you..." Adriane choked out, then caught me in a tight hug. I licked her face before reaching down to my collar. I started to nibble the side weakly. It was the only thing I could do to save my life: send myself to the lab. Or, as we had discovered it to be called, Makai. Tears ran down Adriane's face. She knew that I would die if I didn't go.

"I'll do it for you," She coughed out. Storm buried her nose into my side.

"This is why I didn't want you to be the hero. I didn't want you to get hurt," She whispered. I nodded to show I had heard.

"At least Adriane's OK," I said.

"I'm not worth saving," Adriane said. A tear fell onto my muzzle and I felt my collar come off with a click. I blacked out before the red mist could take my vision.

_Subject 29586 defeated._

-----

POV: Kara

I sat in my dark, dirty, disgusting sleeping cave, waiting for Adriane, Storm, and Dreamer's return. I wondered if they even knew. While they had been out, an assassin had gotten into camp and had managed to defeat Max before Emily and I had driven it out. It had been about an hour ago. I felt worried about the defeat we had heard about twenty minutes ago, but I was sure it wasn't anyone in our camp. Though I wouldn't have minded if it was Adriane. She was rather annoying. And I knew she thought the same of me.

I heard someone slowly walking back into camp. I stood up when I heard something awfully weird: sobbing. I saw Emily get up and walk ahead of me. Adriane's face was covered in tears when we got to the front of camp.

"Adriane?" Emily asked quietly. "What's wrong? Where's Dreamer?" Emily hugged her friend tightly and Adriane cried harder. I noticed Adriane was covered in scars and looked very worn out. I bent down in front of Storm.

"We were attacked by an assassin. It nearly killed Adriane. Dreamer saved her, but to save his life, we had to send him to the lab." Even Stormbringer sounded upset, and I wouldn't have been too surprised if she was crying, too. But since she wasn't, I somehow doubted wolves could cry.

I stood up. I felt a surprising pity for Adriane. Dreamer had been a good wolf pup. He didn't deserve to go.

"Adriane...I'm sorry...it's our fault," Emily whispered. "An assassin attacked our camp. Max is gone. We chased it out of camp. It's probably the same one that attacked you."

"OUR fault?" I said irritably.

"Yes, OUR. You helped," Emily snapped. I shook my head. I didn't want to take credit for the defeat of Dreamer.

"In your dreams. You did the real work," I snapped. Emily stared incredulously at me.

Adriane glared at me with bitter hatred. "I lose Dreamer, and you pin the blame on my best friend! Get out of camp! It was better without you!!" The words caught me off guard. My pity for Adriane dissolved. I gritted my teeth and clenched my fists. Storm was peacefully staying out of this.

"I was thinking about leaving, anyway!" I snapped at her. This was true. I had been thinking hard about it since the blue dragon, Velika, had torn into camp.

"So what, you can be with Syaoran, who hates you!?" Adriane shouted. My eyes narrowed. She was actually right. "Well go! Get out of my sight! I can't stand you! Syaoran should be glad to be blind so he doesn't have to see your stupid face!" I swung around and stormed out of camp, and I saw Emily trying to calm Adriane down. I didn't care for them. They were going to regret getting rid of the blazing star. They needed me.

-----

POV: Sakura

I listened silently as the clouds rolled in. I could tell rain was coming. I was sitting by the water side again. I didn't care if Syaoran tried to drown me again, as I was sure he might. It was the most relaxing place to sit by. I dipped my toes in the water and watched the ripples float across the surface. I sighed, not caring as the rain began to fall. I held out my hand and caught one of the water droplets on my palm. I just stared at it until it disappeared. I bit my lip and stared back into the water at my reflection.

"I want to go home," I mouthed. It had been the first time I had wanted to go home for a long time, seeing as I hadn't been home for years. I had been traveling the dimensions with Kurogane, Fai, Syaoran and Mokona...who were all gone in one way or another.

I noticed something in the water reflection. Syaoran was standing behind me. And looking at his reflection, he seemed dead serious about something. I sighed.

"What do you want?" I asked. His hand reached for something on his back, and he slowly unsheathed his sword.

"Syaoran...!?" I asked, terrified but not really surprised anymore. I rolled out of the way just in time, as he brought his sword down on me, and staggered quickly to my feet.

"What are you doing!?" I squeaked nervously. He didn't respond, instead slicing his sword at me again, aiming for my collar. I let out a surprised yelp, and, knowing this was the final straw, I made a dash for the trees. Syaoran didn't follow. He knew as well as I did that there might be assassins there, and it was quite likely that there were. But I didn't care, not anymore. I weaved through the trees, trying to create as much distance as possible between me and him. I only stopped after about ten minutes of blind running, when I crashed head first into something. I fell backwards, and I closed my eyes shut tightly to prevent myself from crying.

"If this is an assassin, go ahead! Kill me! I don't care anymore!!" I wailed, not bothering to get to my feet.

"Sakura...!?" Said a voice I recognized. I opened my eyes slowly.

"Syaoran!?" I yelped. I struggled to my feet, feeling fury slowly build.

"I'm glad you're OK-" Syaoran started. I couldn't take this anymore. I grabbed his shoulders and pinned him to the tree. He let out surprised cry before staring at me with his eye, glazed over, as usual. His right eye was still closed, and it looked more infected then it had been when I had last payed attention to it.

"Look, I'm sorry I haven't been at camp, but aren't you overreacting...?" Syaoran asked slowly.

"Haven't been at camp!?" I screamed, infuriated. "You've been beating the living daylights out of me for the past two days and you nearly killed me twice!!!! I want to know what the heck has gone into your stupid little brain to make you even try that!!" Syaoran stared blankly at me. When he didn't answer, I shook him back and forth, banging his head against the tree.

"Well!?" I yelled. More silence followed.

"...Sakura?" He asked slowly after about ten silent seconds.

"Yes?" I growled loudly.

"I've been in a coma for two days. I have no clue what you're talking about." I stared at him furiously.

"You said you didn't knock me out by kicking me in the temple, too, but you did that as well!" I snarled. "I want to know why you've been beating me up, and attempting to kill me!" I shook him back and forth again.

"Stop banging me against a tree!" He complained. "I don't know who's been in your camp for the past two days, but it hasn't been me!"

"And what if I don't believe you!?" I yelled. I eased my fingers through the tiny gap between his collar and his neck and held it firmly. "Answer me!" Thunder rolled across the sky.

"Let go of me..." He said bluntly. "And I think I can say something that might answer your question." I slowly eased my fingers out of his collar, released his shoulder, and took a step back. His fists clenched, and he gritted his teeth. He spun around and kicked the tree.

"I'M GOING TO KICK HIS-" his final word was cut off by a loud crack of thunder, but I got the general idea of the sentence.

"Who's?" I asked.

"Which way is camp?" He put in suddenly. I turned him around so he was facing the right direction, hoping he might answer my question if I did.

"The clones," He growled, almost inaudibly, and he ran.

-----

POV: Saphira

I flew in circles, trying to think of something to do. I had found the location of the assassins, and was steering clear of them. The weather didn't bother me. After a while, I finally decided to wash my scales by taking a quick splash into the ocean. I found a location and dived into the water. It felt good after the days flying through the dry air. I already knew that Firedrake had been defeated. It had been hard, but at the same time, a relief. Even though I had lost my partner, at least now, I wouldn't have to defeat him.

As I raised my head to the surface and curled up my wings, I noticed a girl on the shore of the beach. She had blonde hair, and she looked like she had been crying. A lot.

"Hello," I said gently. Noticing a weird look in her eyes, I added "I'm Saphira."

"What are you doing here!?" She snapped. I rolled my eyes. I should've expected this.

"Taking a quick bath," I said casually. "In which case, you're violating my privacy," I added as a joke.

"I was here first!" Rachel snapped.

"I was just kidding," I grunted. "Snappy today, aren't you?"

Rachel growled furiously, and I watched as she morphed into a weird, lethal looking, blue dear creature right in front of me. She looked a bit like Ax did. What happened to Ax, anyway? I had lost track to what had happened to some of these people.

Anyway, she stood at the waters edge, bristling furiously.

_Leave. Now,_ She snarled. She was really beginning to annoy me. I didn't NEED to leave. She didn't own this part of the beach shore. She wasn't my boss, either. I rested my head fearlessly on the sand in front of her, and pulled back a split second before she brought the lethal tail of hers down on my eye. I made a weird sounding cheerful noise before taking off into the forest and landing not too far away. I heard something break as I landed, and when I looked down, I realized I had just stood on the collar of a defeated contestant.

"Oops," I said carelessly, removing my foot. When Rachel caught up to me and saw this, she technically exploded. She galloped at me and leapt. I sidestepped and took flight, not leaving but watching from a safe distance. She stared at me furiously and I watched her with interest as she turned back into a human. Then I noticed the feather pattern slowly making its way onto her arms and I flew off as fast as I possibly could.

"That girl has got serious issues," I said to myself. "It was just a collar." I noticed out of the corner of my eye the bird flying straight towards me. I swung around, ready to face her. She was tiny, it wouldn't be too hard. I breathed out a small wisp of fire. It caught her wing, and she spiralled below me and fell out of sight. I didn't pay any more mind to her after that. I figured she wouldn't try that again. Or at least, I thought so when I felt a human sitting on my tail about ten minutes later.

"Get off, brat," I growled, giving up on being cheerful and blunt, because I was just angry with her now.

"So much for your good attitude," Rachel commented.

"You ruined it," I sighed. She ran her hand up and down one of my scales.

"You're a very pretty dragon," She commented.

"I would've appreciated that more if you hadn't tried to kill me," I shrugged. She rested her hand on one of my scales and closed her eyes. "What are you-?" I asked, but I felt my body falling completely limp. My wings tucked themselves in and fell to the floor with a crash. The impact snapped my collar. As the red mist surrounded me, I gave a final whip of my tail, and I heard the sound of someone smashing against a tree, and the sound of metal breaking. My eyes fell shut, and I knew my work was done.

_Subject 20686 defeated._

_Subject 29099 defeated._

-----

POV: Clone Syaoran

I stared into the trees where Sakura had fled, wondering if the plan for those two to defeat each other and be out of my way for good was going to work. I had gotten lucky. If Velika hadn't slashed Syaoran's right eye open, then the whole thing would've been impossible. Having Fai's blue eye being my right eye was one of the only ways to tell the difference between us. Seeing as we had both been captured from the same dimension, we'd both been wearing the same type of clothing, which had helped. I stood there for about 30 minutes, hoping to hear about some type of defeat. I heard nothing. I shrugged. If it hadn't worked, I would have to go about defeating them myself.

I took a step towards the forest when a figure smashed through the trees and screeched to a halt in front of me. His right eye looked in much worse condition then mine. I bet that if...no, hopefully, when, he went to the lab, they would have to take it out.

"What did you do to Sakura!?" Syaoran yelled at me.

"Wow, you're actually looking at me this time," I commented sarcastically. Syaoran called me a bad name. I smirked. I knew that it got on his nerves when I mentioned his blindess.

"I thought you'd already figured it out. I knocked you out and pretended to be you so Sakura wouldn't trust you anymore. It wasn't hard. All I had to do was get my blue eye slashed open in the same type of wound Velika gave you, and then pretend to be an overemotional brat, like you. Since it didn't work, I guess I'll just have to defeat you the hard way." I shrugged. Syaoran happened to call me another bad name. Thunder crashed loudly. I heard Sakura approaching, so I figured it would be a good time to attack.

I charged quickly at Syaoran, unsheathing my sword. He heard the noise and dashed quickly out of the way. I got up quickly and ran towards him again, making as little noise as possible to he couldn't guess the angle I was approaching at, and drove the sword through his shoulder, barely missing the collar. I fired some magic from my eye, and it nailed Syaoran in the back, knocking over. Sakura held back an upset cry. I pulled back the sword, the side of the blade skimming the collar, causing it to spark, but not break.

Syaoran slowly got to his feet, his blind eye glaring at me furiously. He pulled out his sword and held his index and middle finger against the flat end, the other flat end facing me. He closed his eyes, as if trying to ignore the pain in his back and the blood on his shoulder. I had seen this before. Once. When we had "first met," I guess.

"Raitei Shôrai!!" He yelled. The sword crackled with electricity and fired out a giant bolt of lighting, with the added effect of thunder going off at that given moment. The bolt struck me in the chest and I flew into a tree. Sakura was obviously trying not to say anything, or run into the battle. It was probably hard to watch Syaoran "beat himself up." After all, it was so obvious they loved each other, I could throw up.

I stood up slowly, and we stared at each other. Syaoran's empty gaze kind of freaked me out, and that's saying something. It was no wonder Sakura hadn't focused on my open eye, or noticed that it was not glazed over. Because it probably freaked her out, too. I doubted she would ever admit it, though.

"I'm here to save the day!" A female voice yelled out suddenly.

"Oh brother," Syaoran said, obviously recognizing the voice, though I didn't. "Kara, if you want to try and defeat the clone, you don't tell him that you're there." Sakura sniggered at how stupid the speaker, apparently "Kara," was. I sent a wave of magic in her direction, then ignored her from there on out. Syaoran and I both pointed the swords at each other and charged.

Suddenly, a jet of silver light flew towards us. The magic slashed Syaoran in the stomach, and he stumbled backwards as it curved up and slashed through my collar. The red mist clouded my vision before I could even comment.

_Subject 39782 defeated._

-----

POV: Sakura

I stared at the whole scene, a little startled by the random turn of events. Kara. What the heck was she doing here!? She bent over Syaoran.

"Are you alright?" She asked. I shrunk into the shadows, wondering if I should come out and startle her at an inconvienient time. Syaoran ground his teeth.

"I was, until you came in," He said bluntly. I knew he wouldn't admit it, but Kara had technically saved him, though she did injure him in the process.

Heck, if I had a hard time admitting it, Syaoran never would.

"Well?" Kara said, missing the whole statement.

"Well what?" Syaoran asked.

"Say thank you!" Kara insisted. I facepalmed.

"Yes, of course," Syaoran said. "Thank you for nearly giving me open heart surgery and allowing me to discover the discomfort of alive dissection." I held back a loud laugh. Spoken perfectly. Kara stamped her foot.

"I'm sorry," She said. "I just didn't want to see you get defeated." Syaoran sighed.

"Right. I guess I do owe you a genuine thanks," He admitted grudgingly. "So...yah." Kara took his hand and helped him up.

"Syaoran?" Kara said slowly.

"Yes?"

"Where's Sakura?"

Syaoran shot an undetectable glance in my direction. The look in his eye, though hard to read, technically screamed two words, if you knew him well: "Help me." I nodded, saying I would jump in when the time was right, though I knew he didn't, couldn't, see it.

Kara looked into his blind eye directly, which, from experience, I knew was hard to do. His gaze, though I never admitted it to him, was so empty it was frightening.

"Syaoran...I just wanted to say..."

My eyes narrowed. I already knew where she was going. Even though Syaoran, who was pretty clueless about that kind of thing, probably didn't. She was about to tell Syaoran that she loved him. This was something I had never managed to get the courage to do. I reacted instinctively. I bent down and grabbed a rock.

"I...lo-" I threw it as hard as I could and it nailed her in the collar. The collar smashed open and the mist enveloped her.

_Subject 07284 defeated._

Syaoran turned sharply around, wondering what the heck had happened. "It's only me," I said, barely audible. I stepped out of the bushes.

"You know, when I glanced at you in look for help, that's not really what I meant," He said, though I knew he didn't really care that I had done that. I shrugged.

"Well, it was fun."

"Why did you do that?"

I smiled. "You figure it out."


	9. Chapter 9

_Day Eight_

POV: Adriane

I stared silently at the sky, which was still covered in dark clouds, and raining on and off. I was thinking about Dreamer. Was the wolf pup ok? Would dying be better a thing then going to Makai?

"Storm? I need a hug," I whispered. Storm materialized and I wrapped my arms around the wolf. She put her head on my shoulder.

"I was about to ask for the same thing," Storm said quietly. "Dreamer was going to nibble his own collar off, so I'm sure we did the right thing." I nodded and released Storm, running my fingers through her silky fur.

"He didn't have to save me," I admitted.

"Either you died or he went to the lab."

"I should've died."

"Yah, and we'll let that happen as soon as you and Emily play with barbie dolls," Storm joked.

"Only when they come with chainsaws," I laughed back. We managed to keep up the good mood for about three whole minutes before I fell back into deep thought. "Who do you think was defeated last night?"

"Quite a couple of people were defeated. But the last two? I'm not quite sure. I could go look though." Storm offered.

"Please, don't leave my side," I said, a little scared about being left alone on an island filled with assassins.

"I said I could, not that I would," Storm said. She rubbed her muzzle against my side.

"Where's Emily?" I asked.

"I'm not sure," Storm admitted. "And she's someone I should find." I nodded.

"Right." Storm disappeared. I stood up. Now was a good time to check the border around the camp. I followed it around the area, being sure there were no assassins. As I came back into the camp, I noticed someone I didn't recognize. He was tall, had black hair, and was wearing glasses. I remembered him from the first day, but I just couldn't put my finger on his name...

"Who are you?" I asked. He swung around, obviously not expecting to be caught, then ran.

"Awkward," I sung to myself before sitting back down in my cave. I missed Ravenswood. I wanted to go home and run through the fields with Storm and Dreamer. Practice magic with Emily. I couldn't have cared less about Kara. I ran my finger along my Tigerseye jewel. The wolf stone. It was smooth, shaped like a wolf paw, and it flared brilliantly at my touch. I allowed a small amount of gold to swirl around me, and I started to create patterns in front of me. It was fun, and even though it did drain my energy, it was beautiful to watch. As I saw Storm re-materialize, I allowed the magic to slowly re-enter my jewel.

"Welcome back," I said. "Where's Emily?" Storm didn't respond. "Storm?" As I said this, a sound went off.

_Subject 62098 killed by assassins._

I gulped. "Where's Emily?" I repeated frantically. She never had told me what her code number was, even though it had been implanted into our brains on the first day. Storm padded towards me, her teeth bared.

"Storm!?" I wimpered. She leapt at me, and I barely managed to dodge. As she swung her claws and caught me in the ankle, I knew I would have to fight back. But I couldn't hurt Stormbringer...

I raised up a gold disk of magic in front of me, forcing Stormbringer back. She disappeared and I looked around, panicked. I caught sight of her too late. She landed on my back and knocked me to the floor. I shoved her off. I didn't try reason again. I just knew she would attack. But what was wrong? Why was Storm attacking me?? I kicked her muzzle, and she wimpered, jumping back. But it seemed to hurt me more then it hurt her. I allowed my magic to dance freely through the cave, trying to defend myself in any way possible. She was clearly trying to defeat me. Or kill me...

I stumbled backwards after a long while. "Storm! Please, I won't fight you anymore..." I said. I somehow felt like I was betraying her. "Makes it easier for me to defeat you, then," She growled. She leapt at me. I heard a voice yell in the background and I snapped my eyes shut...

"I'm sorry!!!"

-----

POV: Syaoran

_Subject 92756 defeated._ The speaker in the collar announced. A loud howl could be heard from somewhere far away.

"I wonder who that could be," I said, when in reality, I really didn't care. I wouldn't have been surprised if it was me who had died earlier, I hadn't slept at all the night before, worried that if I tried to, I might wake up and accidently discover what my intestines looked like. Not exactly pleasant, even if I couldn't actually SEE them. But I hadn't really wanted to let Sakura know how bad the wound was. So I hadn't reminded her. Besides, it probably wasn't that bad, it's just that I didn't want to find out. Sakura had done her best to treat the sword wound on my shoulder.

"We should try to find Emily at some point. She's a great healer," Sakura said as she saw me walking awkwardly with my hand on my shoulder as I left the cover of the tree I had slept behind.

"This late into the game, she probably wouldn't want to heal anyone. Besides, no one ever said she was still alive, or wasn't the one killed just a few minutes ago," I muttered darkly.

My thoughts then switched to something completely different in a matter of seconds. In the coma, I had remembered seeing two things. I questioned the sanity of both, but I was too afraid to ask Sakura directly about it.

"Sakura...?" I asked.

"Hm?" She probably turned to look at me.

"Did anything weird happen with...the stars...while I was in a coma?" I was almost afraid of the answer.

"Nothing worth noting. Some of them flickered out, but it was just a trick of the light."

It was all I needed to know. I clenched my fists and kept myself from saying anything more as guilt took me over. Sakura obviously noticed the look on my face. I probably looked like a guilty ten year old.

"What's wrong?" She asked. I bit my tongue before speaking.

"Nothing. I'm just tired," I lied.

"And pigs fly," Sakura said.

"They might in Aldenmore," I half-joked with a shrug. Adriane had told me Aldenmore, a world she had been to, was filled with magical creatures. I would think she's insane, but what is sanity these days?

"What's wrong?" Sakura insisted again.

"I'm hungry," I lied again, but I hadn't eaten for about two or three days, so it made more sense then being tired. Sakura obviously didn't believe me, but she didn't try again.

"OK, come on, lets go hunting," She helped me to my feet, though I really didn't need it. Then she seemed to remember the injury Kara gave me. "How is your stomach? That looked like it really hurt."

"It's fine," I half-lied. I stood up and walked forward. "You go ahead. I'll probably just get injured more."

"OK," Sakura said. She walked ahead of me and I did my best to follow her footsteps. I eventually stopped.

"Can I rest here for a moment?" I asked. She nodded and walked away, though really, I didn't want her to leave so I could rest. I sensed something off about the area, and I wanted to find out what it was.

I walked a little bit around the area, running my hands against the trees to know I wasn't leaving the forest area. Suddenly, my hands rubbed against something off. I bent to the floor, touched the bottom of the tree, and moved my hand up. In the center of the tree were three abnormal marks that had some type of liquid in them...I recognized it as blood. It took me a little while to figure it out. I very vaguely recalled, from the coma, what the man had said about the assassins. Signs that someone had been killed were three scratches in a tree, and either blood or poison. Something like that, anyway.

I broke into a sprint, desperately looking for Sakura. "Sakura!" I called out. I crashed into a tree. "Stupid eyesight," I cursed silently before running again. I crashed into a few more trees, but I didn't waste any more time commenting on my lack of vision.

"Argh, I really shouldn't wander off like that. I just get myself lost," I half-scolded myself.

Suddenly, a loud, horrified scream filled the air.

"Sakura!!!" I cried, and I ran in the direction of the sound. When I was finally stopped by her hand grabbing my wrist, I was not in the forest, I was just outside of it, near the shore. I could tell by the sound of the waves and the fact the air was a lot fresher. Sakura's aura, which I had to use to get the slightest idea of what was going on, was completely petrified.

"Sakura?" I said slowly. "I found assassin scratches on a tree. Does that have something to do with this?" I said slowly. I sensed her nod before I heard her sob out a name...

"Kamui..."

It took me a moment to figure it out. Kamui. Kamui had been killed by the assassins. Of all people, it had to be someone WE knew, didn't it? Sakura fell to her knees at what was probably his dead body.

"..." There was really nothing I could think of saying. At all. Of all people, Kamui was the one who I had least expected to die. Being a vampire and all, he usually recovered from attacks more quickly than average.

We had never been exactly close friends with Kamui, but he had saved Fai's life, and Sakura and I had always felt in his debt for it. And now he was dead. I grabbed my head to try and slow down my swirling thoughts. Sakura was crying. I didn't know how much it took to kill Kamui, but I assumed that his body must be a wreck.

"How bad is it?" I managed to ask.

"Just one wound. It was clear the assassin snuck up on him. Stabbed him through the chest," She choked out.

"If it's that easy for them to kill people, then we're going to have to be a lot more careful," I said slowly.

Suddenly, something rustled nearby. I grabbed Sakura's wrist and pulled her into a bush.

"How did you know that was there?" She asked.

"I didn't," I admitted.

Sakura peaked cautiously though the leaves. "Twitchtip," She said slowly. I nodded, and tried to remember who Twitchtip was.

"If that's Twitchtip, then she already knows we're here," I admitted. Sakura looked at me and cocked her head. "She's the scent seer, remember?"

"Bright kid," Twitchtip said. Obviously her hearing was pretty good, too.

"Don't call me a kid," I said simply. It reminded me of Kurogane.

"Whatever," The rat said. I heard the sound of the rat sniffing something.

"She's smelling Kamui's dead body."

"That's really weird," I commented.

"What are you doing?" Sakura asked Twitctip. Twitctip's flinch could be easily sensed from a distance.

"Being a rat...I can eat what I want," She said reluctantly. I gagged. Cannibalism. It didn't matter who you were or what you'd been through. Unless you WERE a canibal, cannibalism was just disgusting.

Then, something jolted in my mind. You DO NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, drink vampire blood. Unless...-

"Twitchtip!" Sakura yelped, realizing this the same time I did. We both jumped from the bushes and ran over to her. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she warned.

"I don't care if he was your friend. I haven't eaten for two days."

"Nor have I, and I'm fine," I came in.

"Yah, well, I'm not anorexic!" She snapped. I facepalmed.

"Nor am I, you stubborn little-" I began. The rat smashed her tail across my face, and I hit the ground hard.

"This is going to end really badly," Sakura said as she helped me up. She turned away, and I just 'stared' blankly at the scene. The sound of the blood running into the rats mouth was disgusting, if you can actually hear the type of thing, and the screech she emitted was just painful to anyone who wasn't deaf. Instinctively, I darted over to the rat and held it's snout shut with my hands while it spasmed madly. I remembered Kamui saying "hold him down" when Fai had turned into a vampire, but it's impossible to hold down a rat three times your size. She let out loud, painful squeaks through her teeth as she squirmed around. It took a lot to keep her still.

After who knows long of this, the rat finally stopped twitching and fell completely still. "Sakura?" I said.

"Yes?" She asked.

"Please, find somewhere safe. I need to talk to Twitchtip." Sakura glanced at me reluctantly and walked off down the shore. I waited until I couldn't hear her footsteps anymore before taking out my sword and lightly cutting my wrist. It took a lot from me to not make an emo joke about myself. I held my wrist out to the rat.

"What...what are you...I won't-"

"The blood will flow whether you take it or not." I had heard Kurogane say this to Fai once or twice.

The rat lightly lapped the blood from my wrist. It was completely disgusting, but I managed not to flinch or pull away. The texture of the rats tongue made me want to retch, however.

_I feel so sorry for Kurogane._ I thought.

After a while, she stopped. I pulled my hand away. "You don't drink vampires blood unless you want to become a vampire," I said irritably. I reminded myself of Kurogane, which kind of scared me.

"Why didn't you say that earlier!?" She snarled. I stared at her dryly.

"Oh, right."

I sighed. "Well, too late now."

"Thank you," She said.

"What?" I asked.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome?" I said, but I wasn't really sure why. Then I remembered, me and Sakura were the only two people on this island crazy enough to feed their blood to a vampire rat.

"Listen...uh..." She stopped for a minute.

"Syaoran," I filled in.

"Right, listen, Syaoran, I somehow doubt you'll ever need it, but if you ever see Ares again..."

"Ares is at the lab."

"I kinda figured. But if you see him again..." She put her muzzle up to my ear. She gave me a line of dialogue that I hadn't expected: "Don't let go." I raised my eyebrow.

"Why will I ever need to say that? And how would it help?" I asked.

"I hope you won't ever need it. And it reminds Ares of a time he couldn't be there for someone who needed help." I instantly knew that she was talking about herself. As my mind raced, caught in two different subjects, I decided on the spot that I would never need to remember this. I wasn't going to see Ares again.

"Please...take off my collar," She said. "I can't stand this island anymore."

I opened my mouth to reject, but I found that I couldn't. I nodded and de-attached the small collar. The mist engulfed the rat, and I stared at where she had been for a long time, grasping her collar tightly in my hands.

_Subject 82967 defeated._

I stood up and took off Kamui's collar. No one should have to die wearing the thing. I dropped both of the collars into the ocean also before walking in the direction I had heard Sakura leave. She tapped my shoulder when I reached her.

"You gave it your blood, didn't you?" She said.

"That obvious?" I said, holding out the slit on my wrist.

"Kinda," She admitted. I stared at Sakura. And even though I couldn't see her, I knew this would be the last time I would talk to her.

She then added "Kamui shouldn't have died."

The memory ran through my mind. I thought over it twice before I said it aloud.

"Kamui would have wanted to die if he knew, I think."

"Knew what?" I walked ahead of her before I spoke.

"Subaru's already dead," I said.

"How do you know?" She asked.

"I saw two things in the coma. Memories, if I might say." I then suddenly turned around and hugged Sakura tightly, much to her confusion. I then turned around and walked through the trees. I mouthed something to myself...

"I'll miss you, Sakura."

-----

POV: Sakura

I sat silently in the clearing, staring into the trees. Syaoran had said he wanted to go for a walk, but by the look on his face, I could tell he was hiding something. I had decided to wait a short period of time, then I was going to follow him. Since I had learned how to walk around without him hearing me, even if learning that WAS an accident, I had mastered the skill. Not that he actually liked that.

Since there was no way to go by minutes, however, I just counted, as slowly as was possible with my nerves, to 100, and then I stood up. Syaoran's footsteps were easy to track, seeing as since he was blind, it was probably hard for him to cover them up. It worked to my advantage here. As I walked, I wondered how he knew where he was going. Instinct, maybe? Being blind seemed like it would be impossible to get used to.

I followed the footprints to the same area I had found Syaoran when I had been running from the clone. I stopped at the tree I had pinned Syaoran too and stared at it, feeling guilty. I never had apologized for accusing him. I tore my gaze away and found that his footprints led into a bush. I kept silent, intending to find out what was bothering him, without him knowing I was there.

As I carefully parted the leaves, I realized that the area behind the bush was a lot bigger then it looked. There was an open clearing, a tree, and a small patch of dirt that looked like the grass had been carefully pulled out. Syaoran was leaning against the tree, looking like he was trying to calm himself down. I walked as quietly as I could towards him until I was standing about ten steps away. I couldn't get any closer then that, or otherwise, he would know I was there.

Syaoran took a deep breath and stood up. He bent down and wrote something in the small patch of dirt. Then he signed it. I narrowed my eyes. What the heck was he--?? He walked back over to the tree and took another deep breath. He typed five numbers into his collar, and something on the other side of it switched gears. A small wire flipped into view after a series of clicks. I remembered what the man had said on the first day. "If you can't take life on this island, then you can erase yourself," or something along that line. I had always thought at the time that no one would be dumb enough to even try it. But is that what Syaoran was doing now?

He sighed and prodded the wire, as if to see if it hurt. Then he ran his finger between the gap between his collar and the wire.

"Syaoran!!" I yelled. I dashed over to him, caught his wrist, and pressed the button on his collar that re-hid the wire, which flipped back into the collar.

"Sakura!" Syaoran yelped, obviously startled. "When did you get here!?"

"What are you doing!?" I insisted, ignoring his question. Syaoran winced.

"Nothing important," He muttered lamely.

"You were going to ERASE yourself!! Without even telling me!" I could now read the text he had written with his finger in the dirt. It only read "sorry." I clenched my fists.

"Why??" I asked.

Syaoran gritted his teeth, and his response was so quiet, I nearly missed it.

"I...I c-can't...tell you..."

I frowned. Syaoran sounded like he was under so much stress I nearly decided to drop the whole topic. But I then imagined what he had expected me to find. The foot prints had obviously been left there on purpose. When I came, he expected me to see a note that said "Sorry," his signature, and his collar, with a broken wire on it. And I needed to find out why.

"Syaoran...I won't take that as an answer. Erasing yourself is technically suicide. I can't let that go without an explanation." Tears welled up in my eyes.

"The stars. And you might as well throw that annoying clone into this too, cause this is partly his fault. You can use those to find out why I'm deleting myself," He admitted. "Just because you're now here doesn't mean I'm staying." I stared in horror.

"Syaoran...!!" I grabbed his shoulders. "Please! Why!?"

"This argument could go on for a long time, but it doesn't change my decision," He said.

"S-...Sy-Syaoran...I...I won't let you kill yourself," I said. I tried to choke out a few words, but they wouldn't come out.

Syaoran brought his hand to his forehead, as if he had a headache. I assumed that he did. He looked up when he had finally decided what to say.

"I can't stay, Sakura..." He whispered. My heart technically stopped as he re-typed the numbers. "I'm sorry." He ran his finger between the gap in the wire and the collar.

I couldn't help it. As tears ran down my face, I caught him in a tight hug and kissed him. His eyes fell shut again, but he didn't kiss me back until he had snapped the wire on his collar. I then knew exactly why he wouldn't tell me why he was going to do this. Because he was afraid he would change his mind.

The blue mist started to swirl through the air, and I let go, taking a couple of steps backwards. His eyes were shut, as if keeping them open would be too painful. "Find Adriane. She'll protect you. Kara wasn't going insane when she kept mentioning that Adriane promised me something." He said. When the mist was at his neck, he mouthed "Goodbye, Sakura. I love you." The mist then covered him completely.

"I love you too..." I whispered, tears running down my face. I resisted the urge to curse myself for only being able to say this when he was nearly gone. The mist broke apart, and his collar skidded across the ground to my feet.

_Subject 29858 erased_

I picked up the collar and held it tightly, crying. I shakily got to my feet and read his name in the dirt one more time. I then turned around and ran. He had told to find Adriane. And I would do this, since it, I guess, had been his last request. As I ran, I didn't notice the weird set of purple eyes fading into the darkness...

-----

POV: Emily

As I heard of the number being erased, I thought long and hard about the number Adriane had told me. Syaoran's code number. Kara wasn't crazy when she mentioned a promise, apparently. Adriane had promised if Syaoran had been defeated, then she would take care of Sakura. Syaoran had promised the other way around, that he would take care of me. I didn't really think I needed taking care of, but it's always nice to have some support. The age difference between them was also kinda weird. Adriane being thirteen and Sakura being sixteen. But I guess that didn't matter.

The numbers fit perfectly. Syaoran had been erased. I froze. Why? It didn't make any sense. And now, I bet Sakura would be looking for us. But Adriane...

I stood up. "I'll be right back," I said, pretty sure no one was listening anyway, and darted through the trees. The light blue and green colors on my crystals swirled ahead of me.

"Emily?" A small, tearful voice whispered after about ten minutes of looking.

"I'm here," I said. The magic made it's way back to my bracelet and Sakura came into view. Her face was red and tears ran down her cheeks. I felt a sharp stab of empathy. Even though I wasn't 100% sure on what had happened, I had a pretty clear idea.

"Why did he-" I started. She shook her head.

"He wouldn't tell me."

Well, this was news. Syaoran not telling Sakura why he's 'committed suicide?'

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

"Where's Adriane? He asked me to find her."

"About Adriane..." I said softly.

"She wasn't the one defeated earlier, was she?" Sakura said, biting her lip.

"No...it was Stormbringer. I had to defeat Stormbringer before Stormbringer defeated her. She's a miserable wreck, and she won't talk to me at all," I said sadly. It was true, after all. Adriane wouldn't say a word to me, because I had been the one to defeat Storm. I had apologized before, and several times after, but she wouldn't listen. "I'll take you to see her, though," I offered.

"Thank you," Sakura murmured, trying to sound greatful. "But why did Stormbringer want to defeat Adriane?"

"We aren't sure. She just came in and attacked."

"That sounds unlike her..."

I shrugged. We'd already figured out that much. I guided Sakura through the trees and tried, probably failed, to calm her down. I took her over to Adriane, who was sitting down on a rock, as soon as we got to camp.

"Hello..." Sakura said slowly. Adriane didn't respond.

"Adriane, I'm sorry..." I repeated for the tenth time. She didn't respond to this either.

"Syaoran erased himself," Sakura choked out.

"Sounds like a good idea to me at the moment," Adriane said.

"Adriane, please!" I sighed deperately. Adriane shook her head.

"Why did Stormbringer attack me?" Adriane asked herself. I'd heard her ask this before. "I wonder if that man had anything to do with it..." I had, however, never heard that one before.

"What man?" I asked. Sakura seemed curious, too.

Adriane looked thoughtful before speaking. "There was a man in camp. When I talked to him, he ran. I don't think he was doing anything. It looked more like he was leaving already. Or just looking around. Or something. Anyway, I'm sure he's not important." She then looked at Sakura. "Sakura, please don't cry. I'm sure Syaoran had a reason to go." She sounded more empathetic then I'd ever heard her sound. However, this just made Sakura more upset.

Then, Adriane stood up and hugged her. This was weird, as Adriane didn't know Sakura that well. But it was kind of sweet. A giant improvement from when I'd first met her, when she was saying friends were overrated. It was nice to see her put aside what she was sad about to help someone else. Adriane smiled and took a step backwards. I held back a laugh as I noticed how short Adriane was in comparison to Sakura.

"If...if it helps any..." Sakura said quietly. "Kara's gone," Adriane smiled.

"That actually helps me more then you might think," She laughed.

"Does Stormbringer have any special connection to your home?" Sakura asked, suddenly looking thoughtful. Adriane bit the inside of her mouth, closed her eyes, folded her arms and tapped her foot.

"She was the forest spirit of Ravenswood," She said rather reluctantly. "But she would never randomly attack me just to go back home." Sakura looked thoughtful. She then remembered something. When she opened her mouth, she said a name only she could remember.

"Watanuki...!"

"Who the heck-?" I asked.

"He can control spirits, I remember being said on the first day. If you saw him in camp...what did the 'man' look like?" Sakura asked.

"Tall. Short black hair. Glasses," She said dryly.

"That's him," Sakura said.

"Why I oughta..." Adriane whispered. Magic flew from her bracelet. After a few minutes, it came right back. "I'm gonna kick his-" She began.

"Don't continue. There's no thunder to cut you off," Sakura said softly. Adriane raised her eyebrow, not getting it, then ran off.

"I'll have to ask her not to say that for the next couple of days," Sakura said, almost inaudibly. I cocked my head.

"Syaoran's said that before?" I asked. She nodded with a very tiny smirk.

"Do you mind if I ask what type of words come out of his mouth sometimes?" I said, remembering the first day when he was yelling furiously about the rat. Sakura laughed slightly.

"They aren't bad..." She cut off. Then it struck me. All of her friends were dead.

"If you don't mind me asking...what were his last words...?" I winced. Their feelings for each other were clear. I wanted to know if they'd both told each other. It wasn't a smart idea on my part. Tears ran down her face as she spoke in a quiet whisper.

"He told me he loved me."

I gave a very slight smile. They had deserved each other. So why had Syaoran gone and erased himself from the universe? I put my hand on her shoulder.

"I'm really sorry," I said quietly. Sakura so obviously wanted to break the topic I added "We should probably catch up with Adriane before she does something REALLY stupid." She nodded and we both took off running.

-----

POV: Husky

At the sound of footsteps, I ducked under the surface of the water. A girl with black hair was running through the trees. I didn't need to know who she was to determine that she was angry with someone. I had never met her, but I didn't want to take my chances. Girls were so weird. Since she was running near the river, I figured it wouldn't hurt to follow. I followed soundlessly, peaking up every now and then to be sure I was going in the right direction. I noticed she was being followed by two other girls and for a minute wondered if she was running from them. But that didn't seem right, because I recognized one of them as her friend from the first day. The other was one of the lovebirds. I almost felt bad for her at that moment. Who wants to be remembered by THAT name? And where was her boyfriend, the dude who got his shoulder chew off by a giant rat? I felt bad for him, too, because I would kick anyone who called me that to my face.

The girl with the black hair leapt over the water and stopped when she reached Watanuki, who was leaning against a tree. I didn't know him at all, but I had seen him once or twice, and the only conversation we'd had was to ask for each others names so we didn't keep calling one another "the little mermaid" and "spirit dude," and if they knew how many people were left. Neither of us knew the answer to the second question.

Watanuki looked up and his eyes narrowed as he looked at the girl.

"What do you want?" He asked.

The girl didn't respond. The stone on the bracelet she wore flickered, and a gold light snapped out of it. It swirled through the air and quickly flew through the gap between Watanuki's neck and collar. I winced. The girl was strangling him? Wasn't that kind of harsh?

The two girls broke into the clearing. I looked at the river position to see what I needed to do to escape. The water flowed in a U shape around the patch of land Adriane and Watanuki were on. The place where the water split went down a small hill. I smirked. It would be easy to escape, if neccessary. The two girls jumped over the lake and tried to calm down the black haired girl, but an invisible barrier forced them backwards.

Watanuki was a little busy trying to breathe. She was going to kill him. Why couldn't she just defeat him and get it over with?

As the poor dude began to black out, I noticed something that no one else seemed to. A small slug looking thing. It was grey, and...it looked like it had crawled out of his ear, seeing as it was crawling down Watanuki's collar.

"...Ew," I said from underwater. I silently swam to the surface, and whipped out my staff. I somehow felt like I hated this slug. I aimed my staff and threw. The staff nailed the slug to the tree, barely missing Watanuki's collar. The image was...disgusting, to say the least. Slug insides. I somehow thought that this looked more pleasant then the slug itself.

The sound of the squished slug and and the fact the staff had skimmed right past her was enough for the girl to drop the gold light strangling Watanuki. I was amazed I had thrown the staff hard enough for it to stay stuck inside the tree. I smirked. The other two girls finally managed to catch up to the black haired one.

"Why the heck were you trying to kill him, Adriane!?" Said the girl with the shortish brown hair. The black haired girl, apparently Adriane, crossed her arms and irritably gritted her teeth.

"You should know," She hissed.

"Yes, he caused me to have to defeat Stormbringer cause she was trying to defeat you, but did you really think he deserved to die-" The girl with long red hair began.

"No," Watanuki gasped out, trying to remember that he could breathe. "Thank you."

"What??" All three of them said simultaniously. He used his head to signal to the squished bug.

"What is that, anyway?" Adriane asked. They seemed to not notice my staff at the moment.

"It's called a yeerk. They're horrible," Watanuki said quietly. I remembered, briefly, the use of the word on the first day.

"What if someone here is a yeerk?" "A what?"

It was funny at the time. But apparently, there had been one person, a yeerk, or something. What was a yeerk, though?

"They crawl into your ear and take over your brain. Mind control, perhaps," Watanuki said when he noticed the confused looks on their faces. "Thank you, Adriane, was it?" He continued. "As weird as this sounds, if you hadn't nearly killed me, it wouldn't have left."

Adriane laughed. It was kind of weird. She glanced at the squished slug. "Who ever threw that staff, thanks. Revenge is sweet," She joked. Or was that a joke? I couldn't tell. The red haired girl laughed, so I figured it was.

"And since that was my fault anyway..." Watanuki sighed. He grabbed his collar. No one objected. One less competitor on the island would be good now. He took it off and handed it to Adriane.

"Time to see if going to the lab is worse then working for Yuuko." He joked. I didn't get this, but the girl with the brown hair did, because she laughed. The red mist covered him and he smiled as he disappeared.

_Subject 02688 defeated._

Then the girls when to look at the staff. "Who's staff is this?" Adriane asked. They both shook their heads.

"I've never seen it..." The girl with brown hair said.

"You probably wouldn't remember it if you tried, Sakura," Adriane said. She sounded empathetic, though I thought it sounded just plain insulting. I was surprised when Sakura nodded. Obviously, they knew about something that I didn't.

I peaked my head out of the water to see if I could jump across. It was big, but I'd managed.

I sunk silently to the bottom of the water, and powered myself with my tail out of the river. The noise it made caused the three girls to look at me. As I soared over the patch of land, I snatched my staff out of the tree. I landed on the other side of the U shaped river with a loud splash. When I glanced up, the three were staring in surprise.

"What the-" The red haired girl muttered. Adriane walked over to the waters edge and bent over the water. I dusted the yeerk guts off my staff and looked up. I swam to the surface.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Is that your staff?" She asked.

"Yah," I said simply.

"Thank you," She said, smiling. I resisted the urge to shake my head and say that girls were weird. It would probably offend all three of them. So instead, I said "you're welcome." I wasn't quite sure why she was happy, but it didn't matter.

The red haired girl walked over to the water shore, too. Now I was getting claustrophobic. I didn't like girls, if you haven't figured it out. She was staring at my fish tail. She had probably never seen a +Anima before.

"Are you a merperson?" She asked. I narrowed my eyes.

"I'm a fish +Anima," I said.

Now Sakura went over the edge. I sunk deeper into the water to try and avoid their stares. "You were one of the three who volunteered to leave the mist during the mite attack, weren't you...?" She asked. I cocked my head. How did she remember that? Then I remembered. Kurogane and Fai. They were her friends, and they also volunteered.

"Listen, about-"

"Attention!" Said a speaker in our collars, cutting me off. "I would like to congratulate the top four for getting so far." We all stared at each other. WE were the top four? That meant...

"Aw man!" I yelled, bringing my palm to my forehead. "I'm stuck on an island with GIRLS!"

"Hey!!" They all yelled indignantly.

"Please come to the beach shore tonight."

"Or else?" I asked sarcastically.

"Or else we blow up your collars."

"...No use arguing, then," The girl with red hair sighed. "Come on, since we weren't specifically told which beach shore to go to, we might want to get going. You can come with us, too, if you want." She turned to look at me. I opened my mouth to object, when she added "With the assassins on the island, who knows?" I sighed.

"OK, I'm coming." I pulled myself out of the water and allowed my fish tail to turn back into human feet. "Let's go."


	10. Chapter 10

_Day Nine_

POV: Adriane

Emily was right when she said we needed to get a head start. It took us till about midnight to get to the shore on the island the man was talking about: The one we started at. Which was half away across the island from where we were, anyway. By the time we finally found the same, dumb old annoying man we had met the first day, we were all exhausted. We hadn't run into any assassins, thankfully.

We all collapsed onto our backs when we reached the shore. "It would've helped if you'd been more specific, old man," I snarled dryly.

"The good news is, you all got a good work out," The man said cheerfully.

"The good news is that you're defended by giant rats, or otherwise, I could tell you where my foot would be."

"Adriane..." Emily muttered.

"No, no, she's right," The +Anima said.

Sakura shook her head, too tired to do anything else.

"OK, so here's what we've got. Adriane Charday, the warrior of Avalon, Emily Fletcher, the healer of Avalon, Husky, the +Anima, and Sakura, the key to unlocking Tsubasa."

"Yay," We all said sarcastically. No one really cared what Avalon, Tsubasa, or a +Anima was right now.

"Can we go home now?" I said bluntly.

"There aren't four winners," The man said.

"I know, I just felt like asking."

The man shot me a dry look. I shrugged.

"Anyway..." The man started. Suddenly, a small army of rats flooded into the area and created a box around us about a mile long. Or at least, that's how it looked. They also blocked the entrance to the ocean. They probably would've had a harder time with this if someone like Saphira was there. But there wasn't, and it would be impossible for us to defeat an army of angry, oversized rats.

"Now that we've got exits blocked off, lets get this clear: You are going to fight with assassins and against each other. Your goal is to defeat each other before the assassins kill you. I will give you each this one chance right now to send yourself to the lab before the game begins."

We all rested on our backs silently. "Can we rest first?" I asked.

"You have five minutes," The man decided irritably.

It was quite possibly the shortest five minutes of my life.

"Have you all decided?" The man finally asked. Everyone kept silent. So it was probably a surprise when I stood up.

"I can't go home," I admitted. "There's no way I could go home without Stormbringer, or Dreamer, or Ozzie. I could go home without Kara, but that's aside the point." I turned to look at Emily.

"I'm really sorry." And with that, I disconnected my collar.

_Subject 92835 defeated._

-----

POV: Emily

I stared at the spot where Adriane had disappeared, sad, but not really surprised. I bit my lip. Why were we even here? Why were WE the unlucky people who were forced to tear each others lives apart?

I sighed deeply and pulled myself into a sitting position, still tired from lack of sleep and walking hours and hours on end to this spot. I looked around. Sakura, the +Anima, Husky, and I. Well, this was going to be fun. Not.

"All right, then," The man said. "Let's get going."

The assassins were technically dumped on us by helicopters. You can imagine how fun that was, seeing as we weren't prepared. I think some were purposely dropped into the pit of rats just so we could see the results. I won't repeat them, but lets just say it was gruesome.

The assassins started to attack us almost immediately. I wasn't the warrior, I was the healer, so I couldn't fight back. I ducked, swerved to the right, ducked again, jumped, and started looking for a safe corner. Everytime I neared the rat barrier, they forced me back into the battle with their teeth. Before too long, my legs and arms were covered with various cuts and scars. Sakura and Husky didn't seem to be fairing much better. Sakura had a deep scar along her cheek, and it looked like she might've dislocated her ankle with a bad jump. Husky had a dislocated assassin claw sticking out of his shouder, and a deep scratch down the back of his leg. Sakura managed to take one of the assassin's claws and was using it as a sword, though it looked like her hands might've been getting cuts in the process of using it. Husky was very experienced with a staff, but it wasn't doing much good here. If Adriane were here, I might've been able to fight, but I didn't like to hurt people, so I just dodged. Which might've been why I was the most injured.

Sakura dropped the object she was using as a sword, revealing the deep, straight scars on her palms. There had been no real grip to the sword. An assassin's claw went straight through the back of her knee. She screamed and crumpled to the floor.

"Sakura!" Husky yelled.

"I thought you hated girls!" I called at him.

"But I hate these assassins more!" He shouted. He ran over to Sakura, weaving through the assassins. He dislocated the shoulder of the assassin who was about to kill Sakura. "I'm sorry," He said, and brought his staff down on her collar.

_Subject 31415 defeated._

I made my way over to Husky and we started to work together. Apparently, he had a second staff to spare, because he gave me the one he was using and took out another one. "I usually use this to punish Cooro, but it will do good for now."

"Who's Cooro?" I asked.

"Is now really the time for that?" He growled as an assassin brought down his claws on his head. He deflected it with the staff.

"Listen, Husky...do you have anyone to go back to if you win?" I asked. He nodded.

"Cooro and Nana. A bat and a crow +Anima. Usually, Senri would be there, but..."

"Listen, Husky, I actually can't go back without Adriane and Kara, either. I don't know what the magic animals would think of me. So I want you to go ahead and disconnect my collar," I said, deflecting the blow of an assassin who tried to sever my foot.

"A...are you sure...?" He said, obviously stunned.

"Yah. I'm sure. After all, I need to keep Adriane out of trouble, if anything. Maybe we can break out."

"He seemed quite clear when he said no one had broken out before," Husky murmured. I glanced up and noticed that the man was talking to the bunny in his hand. Mokona, he had called it on the first day. Mokona disappeared, and Husky started speaking a completely different language.

Right, Mokona had been are translation system throughout the game.

I poked Husky and poked my collar, then nodded, hoping he would understand. He did. He swung around and smashed the staff into my collar. The red mist picked up around me.

"Congratulations, Husky," I said, though I wasn't sure he understood me. I smiled to let him know I wasn't insulting him, then I disappeared.

_Subject 16529 defeated._

-----

POV: Husky

I just stared at the whole mess as the assassins and the rats all backed off. I stared at the ocean, just thinking. Blood's Island. And I mean this with all the sarcasm in my heart: what a fun place this turned out to be. The man didn't even approach me. He probably knew I would end up kicking his sorry little behind if he did. I sat down and allowed myself to fall asleep on the spot.

When I woke up, there was already some type boat waiting at the shore. The man walked over to me to escort me in, but I swung around and snarled at him. I wasn't following him. As I left the island, I turned back to stare at the shore, wondering what to say to Cooro and Nana. Then I realized, there was almost no way I could tell them anything. If I told any sane person that I just won a battle against thirty five people on an unchartered island in the middle of nowhere, they would think I was nuts. Maybe Cooro and Nana didn't count as sane people, but they wouldn't believe it if I couldn't believe it myself. I remembered Kamui, Kurogane, Syaoran, Cassie, and Fai. Their lives had been taken. You could say I had left many friends, but that wouldn't be exactly accurate. Maybe in any different type of scenario, we could've become friends. Chances are I could've befriended one of the girls.

Yah, fat chance.

But still, I almost wished the whole thing was a nightmare. But as I remembered Senri, everyone else who had been sent to Makai, the people who had died, I knew there was no way it could be a nightmare, no matter how much we all wished it was.

I walked into the boat quietly, gripping my Cooro punishing staff tightly and starting to wonder if I'd ever have the nerve to use it on Cooro again. As I sat on the boat, and it floated away from the shore, I wondered how everyone who had survived was. Makai. That's where we had been warned we were going if we lost. It's the only reason some of us had fought so hard. And I knew that some of them had to go there because of me. The thought that some of it was my fault...

I shook my head, shaking the thoughts away. There was nothing I could do anymore. It was all up to them to make the most of their lives. I had to decide what to do with mine.

I looked up at the person driving the boat. "Out of curiousity, how am I supposed to get home?" I asked.

"We're taking you to a temporary home until we can locate your dimension and send you back." I narrowed my eyes.

"How long is that going to take?"

"Ask the scientists when we get there." There was nothing more to be said after that.


	11. Chapter 11

_Epilogue_

Makai: Two Years Later

Two small crates sat in a claustrophobic, steel room. They looked about the right size to carry a chihuahua, but nothing bigger then that. But inside of the crates were two humans, a boy and a girl. They were skinny, as if they hadn't eaten for weeks. The girl was curled into a ball, hugging her knees to her chest and drawing in very short breaths. The boy, though he had tried many different positions that seemed less pitiful, couldn't find anything and had slowly been helped by the girl out of the tangled mess he was in and into the same position.

This was punishment for there latest attempt to break out of Makai. And they were bound to be in there for about three more days, with the occasional exception of being taken out to be whipped. This had happened to a lesser extent many times before, but they never seemed to learn.

The door knocked.

"I almost hope that's the man who's come to whip us," Said the boy. "I want to tear his arm off."

"Charming," The girl said. "Besides, since when do scientists knock?"

The door creaked open, and a figure about the size of the cage stepped in.

"Mokona..." The boy said. But it wasn't Mokona. It was a green and blue version of Mokona with cat ears.

"No," She said. "I'm C."

They had never seen any creature like C before in the lab. Was she a new experiment?

"Clone Syaoran, is it?" C asked, jumping forwards.

"What do you want?" Clone Syaoran snarled.

"Be careful. He's in a bad mood," The girl warned.

"I noticed, Adriane," C said quietly. "I came to make an offer with you."

"Go tell somebody who cares," The clone said, rolling his eyes and leaning his head against the bars of the cage. The scar on his right eye from two years earlier had healed, but he had gone blind in that eye. It's magic was still quite effective, and the scientists forced him to fight with it constantly. He also used undiscovered elements of its power to try and escape.

"Listen, I didn't sneak all the way from Jigoku to Makai without being caught with a compressed soul in my mouth just to be turned away when I reached my goal," C said with frustration, stomping her foot. This caught the clone's attention.

"Jigoku? Soul? Yah, you kinda lost me," He remarked dryly, though he seemed to be listening now.

"Ignore the Jigoku part. It's the soul I'm worried about. It's painful for it to carry it as an orb." C opened her mouth and let a silver blue orb float from her into her hands. The two just stared.

"What do you need me for?" Clone Syaoran asked, narrowing his eyes.

"Well, I figured you're the one who needs it the most. You're the one who keeps trying to escape. I'm sure this spirit will be willing to help you out. I'm also sure he has some good ideas." The clone's eyes narrowed.

"Is this some kind of a joke?" He asked.

Adriane sighed. "Paranoid again?" She asked, but she didn't need to.

"Look, you're probably the only person who's desperate enough to take on being two people. Or strong enough, for that matter. In exchange, I can mindwipe the scientists, so this punishment will be canceled out, and they won't remember your escape attempt or the route you took, so you can re-use it, if you wan't. They'll have no idea why you're in here. I can also insert memories into their mind so they'll take you out, any maybe even feed you. Sound fair enough?"

Clone Syaoran and Adriane's eyes widened. They were rarely ever fed, and some people would do anything to escape the punishments given here. The clone thought for a moment.

"Fine, since you're so persistent," He finally decided with a sigh. C turned to look at Adriane.

"You can't tell anyone about this, OK? Either of you. The spirit will tell you why...if he wants to, that is." They both nodded. Then C turned around and held the glowing orb out to the clone, who took it with one hand. He technically skinned his arm forcing it through the bars. When his fingers closed on the soul, it glowed multiple colors. He pulled his arm and the orb back into the cage. It glowed a few more different colors before exploding into red light, blinding everyone in the room. When the light disappeared, Clone Syaoran was unconcious. Adriane glanced at C.

"I've got to hold up my end of the deal." The little cat eared creature said. Adriane nodded.

"Before you go...why did you really give the clone that soul? Was it for the clone...or was it for the being the soul was?" Adriane asked. C laughed.

"I guess it was for both. I...I just couldn't let him get tortured anymore. He didn't deserve it. The whole mess wasn't directly his fault." Before Adriane could ask any more questions, C turned around and hopped out of the door, being sure it shut silently behind her.

The clone's eyes slowly reopened.

"Clone Syaoran...?" Adriane asked.

"...Is that you, Adriane? ...Where am I?" The clone's voice sounded almost exactly the same as before, but Adriane heard a small difference, and when she looked into his eyes, she noticed the different expressions reflected in the them both.

"Who are you...?" The room fell silent as the two just stared at each other. The door opened, and two scientists entered the room and picked up the cages. They both traveled in opposite directions, seperating the two before either one could answer anything.


End file.
